What Might Have Been
by Antonia Caenis
Summary: When writing The View From Langley I wondered how similarly or differently s10 might have ended had Jim Coaver survived and made Harry see sense while staying as close as possible to the original script, so here it is. In this version, no-one else has to die. The political background and my characters carry on from TVFL. BBC/Kudos own what is theirs, the rest is my own.
1. Chapter 1

**1. MI5 Safe House 1 and Surrounds, London. 10:45 hours.**

"This was a pretty dumb move, Harry. I'll smooth things over, then we'll figure this mess out. Together."

Coaver had turned to follow the younger agent out the door when Harry responded, politely but flatly,

"Thank you, Jim, but I believe we can 'figure this mess out' on our own, without the CIA's involvement."

Freezing almost in mid-stride, the American turned on his heel, hazel-green eyes blazing in a white face full of barely-controlled fury.

"No! For once in your life you can sit down and fucking listen, Hal!" Gesturing at Glenn, still standing in the doorway, as well as Erin and Dimitri, he ordered, "You lot. Outside." No-one moved, although the two MI5 officers turned their eyes to their boss but he was staring at his old friend, face unreadable, as he thought about what had just passed between them in the inner room. After another moment Jim roared, "NOW!" The sound seemed to snap Harry out of his fugue; catching their gaze, he indicated for Erin and Dimitri to leave, which they did with some reluctance, forcing an even more reluctant Agent Glenn through the doorway in front of them. Not that any of them went far, hovering outside the door in the hope of hearing something of what was being said inside.

Back inside, Harry was subjecting Jim to a death-stare but to absolutely no avail as Coaver, having _been_ subjected to them on more than one occasion in the past, was standing, arms folded over his chest, staring back at him, unblinking, waiting for the silent storm to end. It did, eventually.

"That was uncalled for."

The Englishman's voice was low and furious but there was also that note of uncertainty in it that had begun to creep into his _mien _during their earlier words in the inner room and Coaver jumped on it. Unfolding his arms and heaving a sigh he said, apologetically,

"I know, Hal, but it was also necessary. We really do have to talk about this, today, before things get more out of hand than they already are."

Slightly mollified by the softer tone and allowing his thoughts to open up, just a little, Harry responded, cautiously,

"What do you mean by 'this', exactly?"

Another sigh and the American took a few steps closer, fixing his friend with a clear, concerned gaze.

"Everything, Hal. We know what's going on, not just with the agreement but behind the scenes. In Moscow. In fact, I believe we know more than you do about that part of it. Who's pulling the strings. Who's been manoeuvring all of us around like so many pieces on a chess board in a game we didn't know we were playing, thirty years ago or now. It's gotten beyond your ability to control what's happening, or mine, but together we might just be able to figure out what to do before it gets even more deadly than it already is."

Harry watched him talk, impassive, but deep in the back of his mind a small thought was beginning to wriggle, working its way free of the bonds it had been locked in for the past three decades, a thought that had been making its presence felt with tiny stirrings for the past few weeks. Still unwilling to allow it to identify itself he finally said,

"I doubt you know everything, Jim, no matter what you think." The other man's face hardened again but, suddenly exhausted, Harry held up a hand. "But you may well know things that we don't, and _vice versa_. Is this about Ilya's involvement?"

Coaver's eyes didn't waiver from Harry's.

"No, Harry. Ilya has no involvement. He's a pawn as much as the rest of us. You know it's not him. You know it's not me. You know, deep down, that it's Elena."

"Don't start on her again—"

"I have to, Hal!" The voice was harsh, razor-edged. "I have to make you recognise the truth! Think about it: _there is no-one else it can be. _She's been using all of us, including Ilya and Sasha, since the start, for a political aim that we've never been aware of before now—"

Stubborn and pig-headed, he still wouldn't acknowledge it. Not quite that easily.

"No. _We_ used _her_. And what do you mean about using Sasha? She would not have done that to our son—"

"Hal, he's _not your son_! You know it, I know it, she certainly knows it, we've all known it for three damned decades!" Turning away, Coaver began to pace, echoing Harry's movement from earlier. "Damn it, Hal, I _know _why you wanted that child to be yours and I have some sympathy but it was never true!"

The worm of a thought was struggling more vigorously now, bringing up old doubts, pain and memories from a previous millennium but still it was denied identity.

"How do you _know_ he's not my son? Everything fitted—"

"No, Harry, it didn't!" The American turned and strode over to loom over his old friend. "_You just wanted it to_. And how do I know? Because we've got Elena's medical records from that time and she was pregnant before you arrived in Berlin! The child wasn't born two weeks early, he was a week overdue! And if you don't believe it then I'll organise a God-damned DNA test to prove it. Take the scales off your eyes, Hal, and have a good look: Sasha is a Mini-Me of _Ilya_, not you!"

A shaft of pain lanced through the Englishman's heart as the worm of a thought finally broke free and forth into the fully-blown realisation that he had been ignoring ever since Berlin in 1980. Sasha wasn't his, never had been, never would be. He felt something dissolving inside him as he faced that truth, that the boy he had wanted so much, to fill the echoing void, was not his to claim. His gut was telling him that Coaver was telling the truth and that meant Elena had lied to him then and had continued that lie now. So why, and what else was she lying about? He knew Jim had never believed that story and he also knew that, unlike the woman, Jim had never lied to him, about anything: he was about the only CIA agent – and one of the few if you included MI5 or MI6, come to that – with whom Harry had ever worked who was genuinely honourable and trustworthy. Which left them exactly where? The thought might have become a realisation but he still couldn't give in to it that easily, not yet, it would mean the destruction of one of the major pillars of his existence, so again he prevaricated.

"You'll have to prove it."

Jim had seen the pain and knew what it meant but he also knew there was more at stake here that Harry's private heart-ache so he hardened his own heart and said quietly,

"I will, Hal. That and more. I'll give you everything we've got and we can go through it, with what you have, together and decide where to go next. This is bigger then both of us and we don't have much time left – give me an hour after we get out of here and I'll come over to your office."

Harry's gaze was on the concrete floor and he looked both immensely weary and slightly sick, momentarily drained of all energy. Jim Coaver watched him, quietly, waiting and barely daring to breathe. If Hal didn't accept the truth now then they were all doomed.

Harry could feel the other man's eyes on him as he stared at the floor, unseeing, trying to control his whirling thoughts. It couldn't be true but he knew it was. Had known from the start, really. The honey-trap with Elena had been exactly that and proceeding as planned until she had dropped the news that she was pregnant and the child was his. In the state of mind that he had been in at the time it had changed his feelings towards the operation in an instant and all his paternal instincts, so recently and fiercely reawakened with the arrival of Catherine, had taken over, over-riding common-sense. Deep, elemental love for his children, despite his almost total inability to articulate it, had always been one of his driving characteristics, expressing itself in recent decades in the well-known but publicly unacknowledged care that he had for his officers, but in the case of Sasha it had instantly an unforgivably blinded him to the reality of what was going on. He wanted that child and he had refused, then or since, to listen either to Jim or his own mind on the truth of the matter. And now here they were. Potentially, due to his self-applied blinkers, Tariq had died and possibly even old Max. Acknowledging that Elena was lying had changed everything.

The metaphorical knife in his chest twisted as he faced his truth and he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't – wouldn't – think about it now. There were more urgent tasks at hand. Maybe later, when all of this was over, he and Jim could get together over a drink. If Jim ever forgave him for the past few weeks.

Coaver was still watching his old friend, well able to read the turmoil in his averted face despite the mask the other man had pulled over his features. _Please, Hal, come through this and join us in sorting it out. That way there may be some redemption for both of us…_

The other man finally lifted his face and the American breathed a quiet sigh of relief at what he saw there. Grief, certainly, regret and guilt as well but also a hard acknowledgement that the game had just changed and a determination to deal with it. He was certain there was a tiny flicker of revenge burning in the depths of the dark eyes that looked at him. Good. If they could harness that fury then the disaster he could feel building up on the horizon might yet be averted.

"Very well." He glanced at his watch. "11.45 on the Grid. Your evidence had better be good."

"It is. Alright, let's get out of here and get on with it."

When they walked through the outer door Erin and Dimitri were conspicuously, casually, leaning against one wall a few feet away from the door while Glenn and the other pair were further up towards the exit, looking impatient. The American went off with his Special Activities Division escort while Harry stayed behind to explain what was going on to his officers. Levendis took the news that they were now going to be working with the CIA impassively while Erin began to voice some objections but, at the expression on her boss' face, quickly swallowed her words and they slowly made their way towards the exit. The woman's phone chirped as they went and she answered it, trailing behind the men a little as they walked, finishing the conversation as they arrived back in the daylight, where, although bright, it was starting to gently rain and the sound of a vehicle, now out of view, could be heard fading away at the top of the access, presumably Glenn returning Jim to the Embassy. With a quiet sigh she said, carefully, unsure of Harry's reaction,

"It was Ruth. She told the Home Secretary, who told the CIA."

Harry didn't seem to be really listening, gazing instead up the ramp where the sound of an approaching motorbike could be heard bouncing off the concrete walls. Instead, Dimitri asked, puzzled,

"How did Ruth find out?"

Annoyance flashed across her face.

"Calum told her, he said she pulled rank—"

The source of the noise barrelled down the drive and was thrown into a sharp halt behind the trio's Audi, the rider remaining astride but lifting her visor as she fished around inside her jacket, staring directly at Harry.

"Sir Harry."

"That's me."

A pair of fine black eyes was all he could see as she hauled out an identity wallet and held it up for him.

"Agent Tallulah Zanon, CIA. Director Coaver has just been kidnapped. I have called in backup but I need you to help track the vehicle, please."

The voice was Southern, with a slow New Orleans drawl, but that barely registered as the import of her words did. The trio glanced at each other and Erin breathed,

"Oh, my God," as the import of what had happened sunk in.

"We've got to move, Sir, trust me. He's in a blue-grey Citroen van," the older woman said, snapping her visor shut and gunning the motor of her bike as she swung the machine around and accelerated away, the others piling into the Audi as Dimitri started the vehicle. He threw it into reverse, tyres squealing in protest as they backed up and around and then powered off in pursuit of the green Kawasaki. The chase was short and wild as they gained steadily on the van; Calum, back on the Grid but on the phone in the car, had picked up the vehicle and was tracking it and navigating for them as they headed north-west, along Edgware Road and towards the A40 that would take them out of town. Just as the van came into sight, the Kawasaki on its tail, Calum said,

"You've got a CIA car 100 yards ahead of the van, travelling towards it. Want me to keep them updated?"

A terse,

"Yes," was all Harry had time for before the van dived off the main road and onto the narrow side streets, twisting and turning around corners, both van and car skidding on the wet surfaces although the bike was more sure-footed. Calum was frantically directing the CIA car on an interception route when the van took another fast turn and the Audi over-shot. Calum swore as he recalculated the route; Dimitri slammed on the brakes and backed up as Harry ordered Erin to get ready to take a shot at the tyres to stop the van. She was leaning out the window, trying to get a bead on the tyres while avoiding Tallulah when the CIA car suddenly appeared out of a cross-street ahead of the van, causing it to slew sideways as the driver tried to avoid the car before careering into a row of bollards. The woman was off the bike and standing, pistol at the ready as her fellow agents spilled out of their vehicle and the doors of the Audi opened to do the same with the MI5 crew. The back doors of the van were flung back and Coaver was thrown out the door as the van's driver tried, in vain, to restart the engine. The American hit the tar with a mighty thump and rolled a couple of times as the two men in the front of the vehicle tried to make their escape, to be greeted by a wall of weapons pointed at them. In the back the other two men had realised there was no-where to go once the van wouldn't re-start and appeared in the doorway, one of them pulling a pistol out but he didn't stand a chance as Tallulah's weapon coughed and he screamed as the bullet hit his shoulder. The other man, the one masquerading as Agent Glenn, realised he was now the target of three weapons as Zanon turned her attention to him and he dropped his own gun, raising his hands in surrender. She gestured to him to get down on the road and then walked over to him, weapon at the ready and with Erin and Dimitri providing cover, as Harry, satisfied things were under control, ran the few steps towards his old friend and knelt down beside him, laying a gentle hand on the other man's right shoulder.

"Jim?"

Coaver, stunned and winded, was staring at the road surface about six inches in front of his face, unable to focus on anything else for the moment, but the voice broke through and brought him back to the present, along with a sudden awareness of how much just about everything hurt. At least the pain meant he was still alive. Cautiously trying to move a few extremities a burning shaft of agony shot through his right knee, the one that had hit the road first, and he let out an involuntary groan. The hand on his shoulder tightened, carefully, and the voice added,

"You keep still. There's an ambulance on its way."

Harry was worried but wouldn't let it show. Although the vehicle hadn't been moving, Jim had still landed forcefully on the road and there was the distinct possibility of fractures, especially spinal ones, or internal bleeding to deal with. At his words, though, the American groaned again and stretched, wincing but apparently able to bear it, lifting his head to look up at him through still-dazed eyes.

"Why? Do you think I need one?" He spat some blood and lifted a hand to wipe more out of his left eye before gingerly dropping his cheek to the road again. It was wet, with a mixture of blood and the rain that he was now aware was soaking them all, but at least it was cool to the touch. The dry humour relieved some of the older man's concerns and he finally replied tartly,

"Well, it will make a change from me having to patch you up!"

Coaver coughed, still getting his breathing under control, but managed an equally tart,

"As I recall, last time it was me patching you up so that makes it your turn, buddy!"

They grinned at each other for a moment until the sound of another car squealing to a halt behind them broke the atmosphere. Jim closed his eyes, aware of the mother of all headaches starting, while Harry glanced up sharply to see more black-suited, armed Americans pouring out of the vehicle.

"Looks like the rest of your cavalry has arrived, Jim."

"Mmmm… about time."

The new arrivals looked around uncertainly, trying to assess the situation, seeing nothing but their Director prone on the ground, bloodied and bruised and either unconscious or dead with MI5's Head of Counter-Intelligence kneeling by him, and four other people face down on the tar with seven guns pointed at them. Striding forward, a young Hispanic man with spiked hair, pierced eyebrow and tattoos peaking out from collar and cuff, pointed his own weapon directly at the blond Englishman and demanded, bravado trying – and failing – to cover his nervousness,

"What the hell happened, Pearce? You had better explain, pronto."

The hazel brown eyes looking up at him flashed in annoyance but before the older man could respond Tallulah's voice cut through the air, sharp as a whip.

"Mind your manners, Agent Silva! Apologise to Sir Harry."

The young man suddenly realised that his immediate superior was present but the adrenaline coursing through his veins made him plough on indiscreetly.

"I'll apologise when he tells me what's going on—"

"You will apologise now, Raul," a quiet voice came from the ground. A quiet voice with a note in it that didn't auger well for the young man's future in the Service if he didn't obey, immediately. Jim, having listened to the previous exchange with growing horror at the lack of manners, had finally opened his eyes and fixed his subordinate with a flat, green stare that had quailed significantly tougher opponents as he spoke and had the satisfaction of seeing the young man turn pale and swallow. Raul Silva had, along with the rest of his makeshift team, proven invaluable over the past few weeks and was genuinely talented but clearly still had a little growing up to do, needing to learn to remain dispassionate under pressure…

Finally understanding that he had overstepped the mark and with the situation calming Raul felt a flush of mortification under the iron gaze of both Tallulah Zanon and Jim Coaver. Taking a deep breath and lowering his gun he said, stiffly,

"I'm sorry, Sir Harry. That was inappropriate."

The dark eyes didn't soften and Raul felt himself cringing even more as the soft voice responded, knife-like,

"Indeed it was. However, I will accept your apologies on this occasion and will leave your re-education up to your superiors. In the meantime, you are on UK soil, subject to British laws and we generally do not allow foreign agents to wave their guns around. We are beginning to attract attention so I would appreciate it if you would put that gun away and assist my team with removing the perpetrators and yourselves as soon as possible while we get your Director some medical attention."

It was clearly an order but the young man glanced from Harry to Jim and then Tallulah, unsure of whether to act on it. Now struggling to sit up, Jim sighed and said, barely audible,

"Do it, Raul. Get them back to the office so we can question them in private." The last was delivered coldly, implacable, and Harry, knowing what was about to happen, felt slightly sorry for whomever Agent Glenn really was. Only slightly, though. After what had just happened, he deserved everything that was about to descend upon him.

To give them their due, the CIA agents, aided by Dimitri and Erin, had the scene cleared away within minutes, the kidnappers being removed under armed guard in the back of their own van and the remaining Americans, apart from Tallulah and Jim, vanishing just as the ambulance and the police arrived. Coaver had been inclined to argue about the necessity for the former but had been persuaded by Harry that it might be a good idea for him to be seen disappearing in an ambulance, for the sake of whatever operation they were about to undertake. The arrival of the local constabulary reinforced the idea; as he was about to be aided into the back of the vehicle by the paramedics Harry said quietly,

"I presume this will delay our meeting? Let me know when you are feeling up to it—"

"No, Hal." The other man's left hand reached out and grabbed his arm in a vice-like grip. "This makes it more urgent than ever. That was a direct attack on me and my organisation – they've been following me for weeks – so they must have worked out how close we are to the truth and panicked when they saw you picking me up. They're getting desperate and things will only escalate until we can stop them." The exertion of moving through the pain was wearing him out but he knew he couldn't let it rest now he had started to get through to his old friend. "We have to go through everything, now, and work out a way to counter these people, before they get completely out of control. You know me: I'll be okay in an hour or so."

Privately, Harry doubted that. Obviously Jim had no idea how bad he looked but there was something in his voice that made the older man hesitate and then bite back what he was about to say, instead giving a sharp nod.

"Very well. But the meeting will be at Grosvenor Square, at 12:30, and you—" he suddenly turned on Tallulah "—will let me know if he's not up to it."

She inclined her head in turn.

"Yes, Sir. I will."

PC Plod was approaching by now so Harry reluctantly let the pair go, Jim into the back of the ambulance and Tallulah back onto her bike to follow it sedately to the hospital and then guide her boss straight through casualty and out a side exit to where a car she had organised _en-route _was waiting to take him back to the Embassy and their own M.O. Back at the scene, Erin and Dimitri had been stonewalling the police until the ambulance drove off, after which Harry strode over to intercept the approaching constable and announced in tones not to be argued with,

"Thank you for your arrival, Officer, but everything has been sorted out here. Nothing further needs to be done."

The copper, in her mid-thirties with a care-worn face and fed up with the young couple's prevarications, stopped short at his words and frowned at him.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I will be the judge of that. We had reports of several people waving guns around and shots being fired so if you know anything we would appreciate you and your friends here telling us the truth about whatever you're up to."

"There is nothing to report. As I said, everything has been dealt with so you are free to go on your way. Good day." He turned and started to walk away but the officer wasn't prepared to let it go so easily, despite having just been given what was clearly an order.

"Just a minute. I don't know who you think you are but I believe you'll find my authority exceeds yours."

The blond man turned to face her, eyes like flint, and said with chilling finality, exuding a fearsome authority,

"I believe you will find you are wrong. I would strongly advise you not to press the matter. Again, good day," before heading off, his two apprentices in tow, towards their car. She took note of the number plate but had a strangely sinking feeling when her own young side-kick finally piped up with,

"Who the hell were they, Ma'am?"

Still staring down the road after the now-vanished Audi, she finally replied, bleakly,

"Remember this day, young Rohan. I believe you have just had your introduction to the delightful denizens of MI5."


	2. Chapter 2

**2. American Embassy, Grosvenor Square. 12:30 hours.**

They were intercepted as soon as they walked into the impressive foyer of the Embassy by a tall, slender, very Swedish looking young lady with flaxen curls and corn-flower blue eyes who introduced herself as Brontee Sorenson, currently working with Jim as his analyst on the Russian case. After signing the trio in she led them upstairs and through a labyrinth of corridors that steadily got more and more utilitarian until they abruptly came upon a set of security locks very similar to the pods on the Grid; letting them through, she followed and then guided them along yet more corridors until they finally arrived at their destination. Jim's office. More like a broom closet, it was clearly temporary but also clearly well-used, with neatly organised piles of documentation on the desk, a laptop as well as a desktop computer and an i-Pad. Smaller than the one he had occupied during the 1990's, it featured much the same view, looking down onto a tree-lined street and, as Harry remembered him doing then, the man himself was standing at the window, staring out at the tree-tops, as they walked in.

He turned to face them and Ruth, on Harry's right, couldn't quite repress a gasp at the sight of the technicolour bruising, swollen, almost closed eye and dressings covering various patches of damaged skin that greeted them. Erin said nothing but, despite having been there at the time, was still internally shocked at the visible extent of his injuries while Harry just examined his counter-part with a professional eye and finally said,

"Jesus, James, look at you. I can't take you anywhere, can I?"

Ruth glared at him, finding the comment totally inappropriate, and thereby missed the slow, painful grin that was the American's response as he drawled a dry,

"Many's the time I've thought the same thing about you, _Henry_, so I'm glad to hear you returning the compliment." He limped stiffly to his desk and eased himself carefully onto the edge of it. Noting the flicker of deeper concern in Harry's eyes he added, "Don't worry, it's better than it looks. Nothing's broken. No internal damage apart from mild concussion and I won't be getting on that elliptical trainer again any time soon but apart from that I'll survive."

"I'm sure Gianna will forgive your lapse in the exercise regime for a while!"

The American looked solemn for a moment.

"Yeah. After she's killed me for ending up like this in the first place!" Coaver transferred his attention to Harry's companions for a moment. "I can see you've brought reinforcements. Ms Watts, I don't believe we were properly introduced before."

Erin walked forward and held out her hand to carefully shook his, trying not to jar the bandaged wrist to which it was attached.

"Erin Watts. Yes, sorry about that—"

"Oh, don't be, I know my old buddy here probably didn't give you much choice in the matter and neither would I under the same circumstances. Hello again, Ruth."

"Jim." A slight hint of pink flushed her cheeks but she held his gaze as they shook hands, equally carefully. He gave her the same quizzical smile that had appeared when they had first met on the ferry dock and said,

"Don't blush, Ruth, you told me you were only following orders."

"Erin has what information we have collected on the issue so far, including the identity of two of your kidnappers. Ruth is here as an observer and representative of the Home Office, as I'm sure you realise." Harry's words were clipped and impersonal; he was obviously back in work mode and, possibly, feeling just a little guilty over some of the events of the past few weeks but Coaver was in no mood to continue the psychological analyses. They didn't have the time.

"Absolutely. Look, there's no room in here so we've set up in one of the secure meeting rooms. Brontee, can you lead the way, please? Brontee will also be attending the meeting, along with Agent Zanon."

The blonde girl led the others out and the men followed more slowly.

"Are you sure you're okay, Jim? You don't look it."

The other waved a dismissive hand.

"I'm fine, Hal, honestly, the drugs they've pumped into me have made sure of that. What I'll be like when they start wearing off is another thing, though, so we had better get on with this."

The meeting room wasn't far and the others were organising their information by the time the two men appeared and made their way to the table. Jim eased himself gratefully into a chair while Harry glanced around, comparing the CIA's facilities with his own and coming to the conclusion that there wasn't much difference.

"Well, it's bigger than your broom closet! Surely they could have given you somewhere a little more impressive than that to work in while you were here?"

Coaver shrugged.

"It does the job and I'm just a blow in this time, not a permanent member of the station." A slightly sly expression crossed his bruised features. "At least I'm not stuck in a goldfish bowl…" That had been his reaction when Harry had first shown him into his new office on the Grid in the mid-1990s and it was still his opinion, fifteen years later although he had quietly admitted long since that his own office back in Langley, with its enormous glass doors, wasn't much better. Harry just shook his head at him and replied, sorrowfully, as he took his own place at the table,

"Still jealous of my red wall after all this time?" They grinned at each other again, remembering Harry's explosive reaction when he'd first seen the colour and how Jim had been unable to contain his mirth – sympathetic, but mirth nonetheless – on that first visit, knowing how much his friend loathed the shade. The humour vanished quickly, though, once Tallulah arrived and they were introduced. Now out of her biker gear and in a sober suit, Tallulah Zanon was revealed to be about Jim's age, of medium height and slim with it, with rather grand-motherly (which she was, three times over) neatly coiffed white hair framing a finely boned face and those coal-black eyes that Harry had noted earlier but it wasn't her eyes that made him look twice, questioning why she was familiar. Self-contained and self-possessed, Tallulah accepted the scrutiny with equanimity for a few moments before saying in her elegant New Orleans drawl,

"Yes, you have seen me before today, Sir Harry, although I tried my best to avoid that because I knew you would realise what I was doing." She glanced at her boss with a small, remote smile. "I had been warned that you would not miss much, Sir."

"I suspect I missed more than you think," he replied slowly. "You were on the street ahead of me when I received the first phone call from Elena and then at the theatre the day I met her. I caught a glimpse of you in the corridor as I was leaving. Then in the park a few days ago when I was talking to Ruth. I presume there was more than that."

"Yes, Sir. We've been following you for weeks."

Silence fell as he thought about that, and the fact that he hadn't been aware of it, eventually saying, wearily and knowing what the answer would be,

"You might have just asked me what was happening, Jim."

Coaver looked at him, patiently.

"I tried to, Hal, the other day at Greenwich. You haven't exactly been in the mood to talk."

The other man's dark eyes flickered with genuine regret and even a hint of contrition as he answered.

"No. I owe you an apology for that. Among other things."

"You do. I'll accept your presence here as part of that apology and the actions we're about to take as the rest of it."

The Englishman nodded slowly, feeling unaccountably small. The past two hours had given him time to think over what the CIA man had said in the safe house, the events afterwards and what it all meant and the way it reflected on him and his recent behaviour hadn't been a particularly edifying experience. If Jim was right, and deep down he knew he was, then that particular pillar of his own life really had just collapsed, in spectacular fashion. Sasha was not his. Elena had lied, from the very first moment they had met and, probably, Jim had been right from way back with his joke about Elena recruiting his friend, not the other way around. And that realisation had shaken him to the core. Elena's lie had led to thirty years of desperation, worry and self-loathing over Sasha for nothing; it had led, at least in part, to the final destruction of his marriage and real family and thirty years of avoiding close personal relationships for fear of stuffing up yet again; and it had left him wide open to being manipulated, thirty years later, into being part of an action that seemed to be escalating towards an international incident.

He had been so rattled that he had sent Erin off to see the Home Secretary, instead of going himself, to update him on what had happened with Coaver and their planned meeting to counter the Russians' plans. He gathered his Section Chief had been rather sharp with Ruth for interfering with MI5 business that was no longer in her remit; Erin in turn had been informed in no uncertain terms by Towers that it was his business and he would use whomever he wanted to find out about it, especially when the Cousins were screaming at him about having one of their Deputy Directors shanghai-ed, and in fact he wanted Ruth in on the meeting as his official representative. Given no choice, Erin had accepted the decree with only slightly ill-grace and brought Ruth back with her to the Grid.

It had been with great regret that Harry had found out that Ruth was involved. His relief at the news of the job offer that would get her out of the mess had been immense and, although he had known she would take it the wrong way, his encouragement of her to accept it had been genuine and heart-felt. Any chance of a relationship had been destroyed with the revelation about Sasha (another consequence of Elena's lie and his own desperate belief in it), he knew that, so he had wanted the job in the Home Office to be a new start for her, in every way. And now here she was, back on the Grid and in the thick of it. And not terribly happy about it, judging by the expression on her face.

He wasn't quite right. It wasn't unhappiness Ruth was showing, it was guilt. Guilt that she had manipulated – bullied, really – Calum into revealing what was happening, guilt that she revealed all to Towers largely in a fit of pique that Harry had refused to obey her order and jealousy of what she had imagined, despite his constant reassurances, his current relationship with Elena Gavrik to be. At least the consequences of her snitching to the Home Secretary had assisted in preventing what probably would have been a fatal journey for Jim Coaver and had then resulted in Harry being forced to face reality. Now, hopefully, they could turn the situation around completely and take the fight back to the Russians and she wanted a part in that. The next hour or so was going to be interesting.

When everyone was settled Jim eased his painful right knee and hip into a position that didn't scream quite so loudly and said quietly,

"Would you like to start, Hal? We know what we've got but we don't know exactly how all of this started up again this year so it may clarify some things if you can give us a summary." It was putting him on the spot, he knew that, but he also knew it would oblige Harry to confront and reassess what he thought _he _knew about the issue.

The Englishman maintained an imperturbable façade over his slightly sinking heart. This trawling through the darkest depths of his past, into areas that even the enquiry hadn't penetrated, and the present wasn't going to be easy but he knew it had to be done. He wasn't going to say much that would surprise Jim and he suspected the same would apply to that man's two subordinates; some of it probably would surprise Erin but it might also explain to that young lady what had been behind his recent actions and might just get her off her uncertain high-horse; and whatever he said couldn't possibly make the situation with Ruth any worse. That was gone, over and done with long since.

Short, sharp and to the point, he detailed what they knew from the moment he had been hauled out of the enquiry onwards. The report that Max Witt had been murdered tallied with what Jim's crew had suspected. When Harry mentioned the belief that someone had been impersonating him to Elena, Brontee and Tallulah exchanged brief glances but Jim remained impassive, although inside his brain one of the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. One of the things he had never worked out what how the woman had scared his old friend into paranoia but getting him to believe there was an impersonator, and making out that impersonator was Jim Coaver himself, explained it perfectly and was, he had to admit, a stroke of genius, as was the content of the fake messages handed over by Elena. The news that Sasha had murdered Anatoly Arkanov and that Harry had been involved in the disposal of the body elicited nothing much from the Americans but drew a somewhat disapproving frown from Erin as a ripple of distress crossed Ruth's face: something else he hadn't told her. How were they ever going to go on when, every time they unwrapped part of the puzzle, more secrets were revealed? Or was she just going to have to learn to live with the layers on layers on layers? Maybe, to achieve that end, that was exactly what she was going to have to do. Maybe she was going to have to accept what he had said in that conversation on the park bench, that she knew all the important things about him and that the other secrets made no difference to the essence of the man. It wasn't like she didn't have her own irrelevant secrets, after all. She suddenly remembered Lucas' words when he had drugged her, urging her to be brave and take the other path. Maybe, after all of this mess was over, that's exactly what she would do. She hadn't put an offer in on that cottage for nothing, after all…

Focussing on a spot on the table top, Harry continued on, doggedly, desperate to get it over with. Reporting the conclusion that they had come to that Jim was responsible for Tariq's death, among everything else, was harder than either man cared to admit. Harry was acutely embarrassed and ashamed to admit they had been manipulated into that result; Jim was still deeply hurt that his old friend had even considered the idea, let alone convinced everyone else but he managed to step back enough to remain largely dispassionate, understanding that Elena's manoeuvrings had been more thorough than any of them could have guessed. He did narrow his eyes a little at the reasons the Englishman came up with to explain that result, as did Tallulah, while Brontee looked highly insulted, but he understood that it was the only result that made sense with the information they thought they had…

There was little more to report. The subject of the meeting between Harry, Ruth, Elena and Sasha a couple of days ago, and the outcome. Even as he spoke Harry realised that particular conversation was as much proof as anything else of Elena's duplicity. How triumphant that woman must have felt at that moment, knowing she almost had every single one of them exactly where she wanted them? The thought made him slightly sick so he went on with what little was left. Ruth's meeting on the pier with Coaver wasn't even mentioned: they all knew what had happened there but the woman herself felt a sharp stab of embarrassment for how badly they had mis-read the CIA director, especially she herself. After all the digging into his past that she had done, she really should have been more impartial in her assessment. Even knowing she had been manipulated by Elena into reaching her conclusion, Ruth still felt guilty about that and always would. She was just glad the outcome hadn't been any worse than it was.

Harry's words ground to a halt and they all took to joining him in staring at the table top for a few moments. Finally he lifted his eyes and looked directly at the other man, who had indeed stood by him, through thick and thin, since 1980, and felt profoundly ashamed.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I should have listened to you, right from the start in Berlin."

Coaver was feeling nothing much except slightly depressed. As he suspected, the Brits didn't have much in the line of facts at all and instead had jumped to the conclusions that had been pre-planned long since by Elena Platonovna and her handler, Mikhail Sergeievitch Levrov. Deeply saddened, he nevertheless could understand. Judging by Harry's expression he didn't know quite what to expect from his American counterpart and that was just as sorry a sight – there had been a time, up until the last few weeks, where that would never have happened. Suddenly infuriated at Elena for coming within a whisker of destroying one of the longest friendships he had ever had, Jim decided to get over it, accept the apology for what it was (as deep a one as he had ever seen from that particular man) and get on with it. His greatest revenge for the damage, and the best foundation he could imagine building to recover the friendship, was to get Harry on board and, together, destroy RussiaFirst's plans. If that meant taking down Elena, so be it. Sighing, he met the dark gaze and finally replied,

"Yeah, well, we both should have heeded the warning signs at the time, Hal. Before it all went wrong we both knew there was something slightly off about the situation. However, what's done is done, my friend, so apology accepted and let's get on with things." Straightening up in his seat and wincing at the pain from a spot on his back that as just starting to register its protests, he asked, "Do the names Mikhail Levrov, Yuri Zykov or RussiaFirst mean anything to you?"

Harry considered for a moment, immensely relieved that Jim had accepted his apology and _mea culpa_, but the names didn't ring too many bells.

"No. RussiaFirst is a political party with an extreme nationalist agenda and growing influence in that country but that's about all. Why?"

Jim sighed.

"Ladies, can you do the honours?"

As Tallulah spoke, with Brontee and, occasionally, Jim, filling in details, Harry, Erin and Ruth listened with growing dismay and that horrible, sinking feeling that signified they recognised that what they were hearing was the truth. Everything was detailed, from Elena's personal hero-worship of her best friend Alla Levrova's older brother, Mikhail, from the time the two were girls at ballet school and onwards, to Levrov's career with the KGB, then his attempted rise as an oligarch who had made the mistake of, somehow, engendering the lasting enmity of Vladimir Putin and was constantly slapped down as a result, and then finally the development of his political party, which seemed to be aimed at taking down both Putin and his government. The latest events were part of that and Elena's role was spelled out, both with the hard proof and Jim's suspicions that he and Harry had, in actual fact, been recruited by Levrov and Elena way back when, not the other way around. Veronica Duran's role was enumerated, along with the paper and electronic trail that linked her with Collison, Hamet Fasli, Levrov and, by inference and evidence, Elena. Ilya, it seemed, was almost completely innocent, as much a dupe as Jim and Harry had been, if not even more so. Erin's eyebrows shot up almost to her hairline as the lie about Sasha's parentage was revealed, along with Brontee's electronic copies of the documents showing the truth, but she quickly realised that she was the only one in the room displaying any surprise so she swallowed her shock for consideration later. No wonder Harry had been in such a foul mood ever since the Gavriks had turned up.

Jim did the final summing up and laid out what he thought was likely to happen, using the events of this morning as supporting evidence that RussiaFirst were starting to panic.

"I'm pretty sure they were going to kill me. They've obviously worked out that we're onto them and the prospect that you and I and our respective organisations might be about to get together and work it all out was enough to make them act, risking bringing my country at least down on their necks. That speaks of either panic or arrogance or both. Whatever it is, we have to stop them, Hal, before they kill anyone else. They're already responsible for the loss of Max, your asset, your young techie and Anatoly Arkanov, as far as we know. Who knows what else they will do but I've got bad feelings about them and I don't want those feelings to become real."

Harry, listening, was quietly devastated. Whatever remnant bits of that foundation pillar he had been holding together for the past few hours had just shattered, in spectacular, undeniable fashion, and he was sickened by it all. What else had he got wrong, if he had got _that_ so stuffed up? It was something he was going to have to think about, seriously and in depth and without the anaesthetic of a bottle of Ardbeg, but not right now. Jim was right. They had better things to do than wallow in self-pity and recriminations. Pulling himself together he was aware of a tiny flame of revenge beginning to burn in the depths of his soul so he merely nodded his agreement and said,

"Yes. Any ideas on where we start?"

The women were somewhat startled at the response. All of them had been expecting more of an argument so his rapid acquiescence was a surprise. He had appeared impassive while the Americans had been speaking and still did, the famous Pearce stoicism and reserve to the fore, but both Ruth and Jim could read the tiny signs that showed his inner turmoil. Understanding, either in part (Ruth) or in full (Jim), they felt for him, deeply, but knew they didn't have time to help him, not at this exact moment, so were glad that he was forcing himself to be impartial and address the larger picture.

"Did you say you had something on two of the guests cooling their heels in our cellars?" Coaver asked, gently manoeuvring them all into the next phase of the operation. Erin shook herself out of her semi-reverie and replied,

"Yes, yes we do." Reaching into her bag for her i-Pad she pushed it to the centre of the table and let her fingers dance over the screen for a moment. The face of one of the subordinates who had accompanied Glenn came up. "His name is Jovan Milic. Born in Belgrade, Serbian national, former soldier who turned mercenary after the war in Bosnia. Spent some time in Sierra Leone and Colombia, among other places. If you haven't found out already, he will be in your database as we believe he's on a CIA watch-list due to some operations he was involved in with various South American drug cartels." Ruth and Harry suddenly caught each other's eye briefly, both wondering the same thing: if Beth Bailey had still been on board, would she have recognised him? Brontee's ears pricked up at the same comment and she started sweeping her fingers over her own i-Pad screen as Erin continued to talk. "One of the others who forced you into the van is Sanzo Morales. Spanish, something of a legend in the bomb-making world and another mercenary who dabbles in being a deniable asset for a number of national security organisations, including Mossad, the ISI in Pakistan and the Indian R&AW, among others."

"He's impartial, then," Harry muttered, briefly scrubbing at his face in a gesture of tiredness.

"Goes where the money is," Erin went on. "We haven't been able to identify Glenn yet but it looks like someone has hired a small private army and intends to use it. Would RussiaFirst extend to throwing bombs?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Tallulah replied quietly. "Pavel Zykov, the son of Alla Levrova and her husband, Yuri Zykov, who is also the loyal deputy of Mikhail Levrov, is the current public face of RussiaFirst. He's a former army officer and ex-_spetsnaz_ who has a history of using bombs and rockets, including the Shmel thermobaric rockets that he threw into a certain school in Beslan during the siege a few years back."

Harry's head snapped up at that, as did Ruth's, and his face hardened perceptibly, in proportion to his growing disgust with Elena and her cronies. God knows, he had done some underhand things in his time but, as far as he knew, he had never utilised the services of someone who was a mass-murderer of children.

"Sir?" Brontee looked up from her screen, excitement in her very blue eyes.

"Yes, Brontee?"

"We've got a positive link between all three men."

Five sets of eyes swivelled to stare at her as she beamed at her boss. Finally he said,

"Well, young lady, don't keep us in suspense."

"It's Rustam Ilescu." She turned to look at the three MI5 officers sitting opposite her and spun her tablet around so they could see the file. There was Agent Lindsay Glenn staring back at them. "We identified him about an hour ago. Born in Moldova but a US citizen as he immigrated with his parents as a child. Educated in Dallas, Texas and a former member of the US Marine Corps. He returned to Moldova as a mercenary and it appears that he recruited your pair in Kosovo. He was active in training the liberation army in Kosovo and has been involved in assassination missions in Chechnya, some of which were under Hamet Fasli as paymaster and some under another Chechen warlord called Aslan Ulyanov. He's been active in Iraq and Libya and also fought in Sierra Leone and Colombia. He's a lot higher up our watch list than Milic but for the same reason: mercenary operations undertaken on behalf of a number of the larger South American drug cartels. This is where it really gets interesting. In between leaving the Moldovan army and becoming a mercenary he spent three years as a private body guard to Ilya Gavrik." The British trio went very quiet as the young woman took a breath before going on. "He also appears to have hired another former comrade from Kosovo, a Serbian called Zubin Trinejastic, who is currently working for Mikhail Levrov but, before that, spent two years working protection for Elena Gavrik. Trinejastic was the inside contact who fed us the information about what was about to happen with the Anglo-Russian partnership, which was what got Director Coaver sent to London in the first place. We think that information feed was deliberate, specifically to get the Director involved."

A thick, heavy silence fell in the room as everyone absorbed that. Harry closed his eyes for a moment; when he opened them again they were as cold as any of them had ever seen and, when he spoke, it was with the deceptive quietness that indicated someone was about to pay the ultimate price.

"This really has been a set-up, hasn't it? The ultimate set-up. Even I wouldn't play a game that lasted over thirty years and use my own child as a pawn in the process." When nothing was forthcoming he added, "Well, Jim, any ideas on where we go next?"

_Thank God. He was fully on-side…_ Coaver cautiously stretched his back again and said,

"You've got it in one, Hal. We were both snared in 1980 and we've both been pawns in a chess game we didn't know we were playing ever since. You're the one who has borne the brunt of it so it's about time we put a stop to it. We've put a tap on both Elena's and Levrov's phones and are monitoring any other electronic traffic that comes out of the Gavrik's hotel, just to confirm the link. They've been clever so far but, with the way things are going, I expect they'll slip up soon and then we've got them. If they don't, we find a way to trap them the same as they've trapped us."

Harry nodded, slowly, mind ticking over the possibilities. Ruth and Erin looked at each other before Ruth glanced over at the Americans and said quietly,

"Is it worth getting the FSB involved? If your suppositions about Levrov and Putin are right then surely the Prime Minister would leap at an opportunity to finally put them out of action."

"Possibly," Jim responded, eyes narrowing as he considered the option. "I briefly wondered about using Ilya—"

"That would never work, Jim," Harry interrupted, voice harsh-edged and slightly bitter. "Elena is the only chink his armour has ever had. He won't do anything against her unless you want to try to prove to him how she's used Sasha since the day he was conceived. If we _could_ convince him of that then God help her but…"

His old friend looked across at him sympathetically.

"I know, Harry. Too risky. It may be worth approaching their local station chief, though, if we know who he or she is."

"Evgeny Petrovitch Kuzin," Tallulah put in from where she had been observing the proceedings. Erin Watts was sharp but seemed out of her depth in this situation; Sir Harry had lived up to his reputation for ruthlessness in the way he had swallowed what must have been totally galling news, acknowledged the truth of the situation in the space of a few moments and was now, with clinical accuracy, working towards an appropriate solution to their problems; and Miss Evershed, well, she was interesting. She hadn't said much but also hadn't missed anything as Tallulah had covertly watched her assimilating the information as it had been delivered, all of which would have been expected for someone who so recently had been Section D's senior intelligence analyst. What has really interesting, though, was her face. As Jim Coaver had realised during their conversation on the pier, so Tallulah Zanon had seen the emotions ebb and flow over the other woman's face and in her clear, pale eyes. And those emotions had pointed in one direction. Harry Pearce. Horror, guilt, jealousy, brief anger but, most of all, an unspoken, hopeless longing had washed over her features during the past several minutes. Tallulah wondered if Sir Harry realised just how much this woman adored him, repressed though that emotion was and partly buried under a strange veneer of anger and depression. Then she remembered the conversation the pair had been involved in on that park bench a day or so back and knew that he did but saw that he though it was equally hopeless. She had got the impression that day that he had been disengaging from Ruth and, judging by his words to her during the telephone call this morning, as repeated to her by Jim, she had been right. A deeply troubled pair, then, or deeply troubled because they weren't a pair… It was a situation that would not have been helped by the recent events. She didn't envy them.

She realised that everyone was looking at her so she brought herself back to the matter at hand and added,

"I looked into who was around when all this started, Sir, in case there were any other familiar names, apart from Gavrik. There weren't. Kuzin is in his late forties and left the navy to join the service while it was still the FSK in the mid-nineties. Sharp, hard, extremely clever and totally dedicated to the new Russia and Putin. He was also Anatoly Arkanov's mentor, along with Sasha's for a while. It was different with Arkanov, though; Kuzin had served under Arkanov's father while at sea." Everyone in the room looked at her in surprise, including her boss. "My apologies, Sir, it didn't seem to be relevant to what was happening, although it is in my files on the operation."

"That's okay, Tallulah," Jim said slowly as he considered how they may be able to use that information to their advantage. Glancing over at Harry he met that man's dark eyes and saw the same thought reflected there. "Would you like to make the approach, Hal, or will we?"

"I think we should, at least initially. The US is not officially involved in any of the partnership negotiations whereas we should be able to make the approach without raising suspicion." He turned to his Section Chief. "Erin, perhaps you and Dimitri should set up a meeting. His SBS background may be a useful ice-breaker."

"Yes, Harry. How soon?"

"Today, if you can. Jim's right, we don't have much time." Looking back over the table he added, "As for the rest, I may have an idea on that. You disappear from sight, Jim, let them think they've succeeded in terminating you – DOA at the hospital. We can arrange the appropriate records, although I doubt if they'll check. In the meantime, we let them proceed as planned and see what happens."

"No, Harry, that's too much of a risk," Ruth's voice cut in but she was ignored as both Jim and Tallulah looked at him speculatively.

"What of those in the basement, Sir Harry?"

The two men continued to gaze at each other and it became obvious they were back on the same wavelength, reading each other's minds.

"We turn them, or at least a couple of them, Agent Zanon. Ilescu and the Spaniard. Find out what the plans were and use them to make it appear that everything is still on track."

For the briefest of moments an almost unpleasant smile crossed Coaver's battered face.

"That we can do, Hal. Guaranteed."

Brontee cleared her throat and asked, slightly tentatively,

"And Mrs Gavrik? She is probably waiting for confirmation as we speak."

The expression that flickered in Harry's eyes chilled all of them.

"Then I will give it to her. You said you were trying to tap her phone calls?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Is this number on your list?" He scribbled down the one that had been used before by Elena to contact him and handed it over to the young blonde. She looked at it and nodded. Pulling out his phone he added, "Well, let's see how good your system is. You can monitor it from in here?"

"Yes, Sir, just give me a moment." A few furious sweeps of her fingers and she announced her readiness as Harry dialled the number. It was answered within a couple of rings.

"Yes?" Elena's voice. Harry didn't prevaricate.

"We need to meet. Urgently. Can you get away?"

"Where?"

He gave her the address of a safe-house near her hotel. "20 minutes. Be alone." He hung up without waiting for her response and gazed at Brontee. "Well, Miss Sorenson?"

"It worked perfectly, Sir."

"Good. If there's nothing else we had better make tracks."

"We will send some people out now, Sir Harry, get them in place before either of you arrive. Just to make sure of your safety." Tallulah met the dark hazel eyes that were looking at her appraisingly without flinching, unaware that the owner of the eyes was wondering how it was that this elegant southern belle somehow forcefully reminded him of a combination of the better aspects of both Connie James and Ros Meyers despite looking and sounding nothing like either of them. Whatever it was, he was glad she was on their side and not the other. Nodding his assent he replied, equally gravely,

"Thank you, Agent Zanon."

"And, Sir Harry, the car you were in this morning when you met Sasha Gavrik?" Both Harry and Jim now stared at her, questioningly. "You might want to get one of your technical people to sweep it. There was something a little hesitant about the way he got out. He may have planted something." Again, there was little Harry could say to that: in the state of mind he had been in lately it would be simply yet another thing he had missed that he shouldn't have… Once more, thank whatever gods there were that Tallulah Zanon was on the side of the angels, albeit dressed most of the time in the unlikely garb of a Confederate biker.

They all started to get up; noticing his friend struggling a bit Harry reached out a hand to haul him to his feet. "Come on, Jim, you poor old bastard. Let's get you up."

"_Old?_ That's rich, coming from you! And my parents were married so you're wrong on that front, too, pal."

The mildly-insulting banter continued until they got Coaver back to his office; as the trio prepared to leave Harry said,

"I will leave you to get on with your part of the game and will get back to you afterwards but do you want one of your team to sit in on the comms? I will be wired."

Recognising and appreciating the gesture for what it was, Jim agreed and volunteered one of his other team members, D'wane Brandon, who was currently twiddling his thumbs sitting near the Gavrik's hotel, waiting for something to happen, while Raul Silva would pay for his ill manners by being despatched to be one of the watchers and one of the other youngsters from the morning, Tom Defoe, would get to practice his tailing skills by following Harry to the meet. Tallulah would stay behind for the moment: Jim need her assistance with those in the basement… With that, the group broke up and went their separate ways, all quietly considering what they had learned and where it might lead them.


	3. Chapter 3

**3. MI5 safe house 2. 14:00 hours.**

It had been a busy twenty minutes. Erin was on the phone to Calum, organising the obbo van and for various bits of technology as well as the keys to the safe-house to be delivered to Harry _en-route, _as they followed Brontee out through the security gates. Ruth, still quietly reeling from what had been revealed, asked a distracted Harry how much to tell Towers. His brusque response had been 'whatever she wanted' to tell him to make him understand how serious it all was. He said little more, clearly running through various scenarios for the upcoming meet as they walked and not in the mood for small talk. Once at the front door the women were despatched back to their offices courtesy of a CIA car while Harry went to retrieve the Audi and set off for the safe house. Raul Silva and at least one other were ahead of him while Tom Defoe, hastily changed into shirt-sleeves and jeans, was somewhere behind. Despite the tension in his gut, that little flame of revenge was burning ever more brightly and, in a twisted way, Harry was looking forward to what was coming.

The drop was made closer to the house than he would have preferred but Calum had been held up in the van by a delivery truck blocking one of the nearby roads. As a result, Harry barely had time to get his own wire in place, drop a couple of strategically placed bugs and run through a quick check to make sure they were working when a very deep, totally unknown American voice murmured in his ear,

"Target in view, Sir."

D'wane Brandon, presumably. As Harry moved from the parlour back to the hallway Calum, squashed into the back of the obbo van with the rather large and very fit African American CIA agent, confirmed,

"Elena Gavrik is here, Harry."

The doorbell rang as he finished speaking. Elena had been wondering, ever since the brief phone call, what this was about. She had been hoping that the phone call itself would be from Ilescu, reporting the success of the operation against that accursed American, Coaver; as she walked towards the tall, Georgian town-house that was the address she concluded that perhaps Harry was about to deliver that news instead. The last report she had received from Ilescu was to say that he thought MI5 were on his tail; knowing Harry as well as she did, she was certain it would have been him. Hopefully the ruse had worked well enough and for long enough for Ilescu and his team to achieve their end, though: another small obstacle removed. Whatever this meeting was about, she was supremely confident that she could handle it and stay in control, as she had done for the previous three decades.

Inside, Harry heard the hollow ringing from where he was waiting by the foot of the stairs. Taking a deep breath, he walked to the double front door, opened the left side and gestured for the woman to come inside, stepping aside to allow her through and saying a polite,

"Thank you for coming," as she walked in past him to step onto the faded red and gold Turkish hall runner. As elegant as ever, she was dressed in a drifting pale pink chiffon pant-suit with a ruffled camisole top and a duskier pink, silky over jacket with a pale grey stole thrown over her shoulders, luxurious red hair coiled up in the old-fashioned style she favoured that harkened back to the greats of the Mariinsky Ballet and moving with that self-possessed grace that had always marked her progress. He gazed at her as she slowly walked forward, looking around the entry hall, with its slightly dusty timber floor and hall stand lit only by the grey light coming weakly through the slightly cob-webbed glass panel above the door and taking in the musty air of emptiness, and considered how much had just changed. Once, he had been so desperately concerned about this woman, the putative mother of his eldest son, that he had been willing to break every rule in the book and then some in order to get the pair of them away from the danger she had convinced him that she was in; then thirty years of guilt over the way that plan had ended, followed by a sudden reappearance that had mired him in more guilt and a shame which fired him with no greater a desire than to avoid the woman completely. The first, and only, discussion he had had with Jim about the entire mess, over more drinks than either of them cared to remember in several dives in Berlin in 1985, had forced him to acknowledge then that, even if the plan had worked, he would not have been able to have any contact with either Elena or Sasha afterwards, for their own safety, so he had done his best to bury the entire episode. And then, out of the blue, here she was, wreaking havoc again. Only now, finally and too late for some, he knew the truth.

"Tell me you don't live here," the woman said, a touch of sadness in her rich contralto, walking a few more steps towards the stairs. She knew he didn't but had to keep up the pretence. God, how she loved this game! So much more fulfilling than any amount of the curtain-calls she had received in her previous career.

"Nobody lives here," he responded quietly. As she turned to look at him, frowning delicately, from the threshold to the parlour, he expanded, "Well, nobody real."

In the obbo van, Calum and D'wane glanced at each other and gave the thumbs-up. Everything was coming through loud and clear, as it was to Erin and Dimitri back in Thames House and Jim and Brontee at Grosvenor Square. Tallulah wasn't there – she was busy indulging in some psychological games in the basement.

Inside the house, Harry and Elena walked into the room together, he being the gentleman and allowing her to go ahead. Despite the shutters being drawn back from the large front window the parlour was still dark and gloomy and, out of habit, the woman reached for the light switch but he stopped her by putting his hand over hers, playing her at her own game, and murmured quietly, gazing at her intently,

"Best not." He suddenly remembered an expression they used to use back in Berlin, on the rare (and they had been rare: from his recall to MI5 in late 1979 until he had finally turned his back on Germany at the end of that decade he had been lucky to be in Berlin for more than a few months a year, his duties with Five leaving him little time to play dirty games for Six) occasions that they had been able to get together. "We're not supposed to be here."

They look at each other for a few moments, remembering the past but assessing the present as well. With his new knowledge of her all he could think of was that this conversation was going to be interesting and that he wasn't going to believe a word she said. Elena, on the other hand, was calm and unruffled: his action and those last words proved that she still had him exactly where she wanted him, eating out of the palm of her hand. Which was exactly what he had wanted her to think so he was delighted that she had taken the bait.

Extracting her hand from beneath his and turning away, Elena walked towards the marble fireplace opposite the door, still looking around the room and away from him. Odd bits and pieces were scattered around: small, unmatched china containers on the mantle-piece next to an old, tarnished gilt carriage clock and candles in tall white porcelain and gold candlesticks wrapped in slightly dusty white chiffon bows as though left over from a wedding banquet. White painted wooden shutters were partly drawn back from the large, uncurtained windows at the front of the room, while a number of mock-Sheraton chairs, painted and upholstered in pale colours of off-white, cream and pinks were placed around another large, rose and teal coloured Turkish rug that covered much of the honey-coloured timber floor boards with a large sofa in complementary colours placed off to the left. Other small pieces of white-washed, artfully distressed furniture were scattered around: had it been lived in, the house would have been more elegant than it first appeared; as it was, empty and musty, it was merely cold and slightly depressing. Continuing to watch the woman from his place in the doorway, Harry said quietly,

"Elena. Jim Coaver is dead." Her movements barely slowed as she puts her clutch purse down on a side table but she still didn't turn to look at him, instead running her hand absently over the old clock on the mantelpiece as he continued on, "He was murdered this afternoon."

Finally she spoke.

"By whom?" The words were spoken absently as she went on caressing the clock and with her back turned so he wouldn't see the surge of triumph that she, momentarily, couldn't control. They had done it. Neutralised the greatest threat to the operation now that he had unwittingly played his part. Stupid, arrogant Yankee, he had always been a slippery one, even when they were using him back in the Berlin days, and had come perilously close to undoing their plans now. Unlike the man standing behind her, who was so easy to control with that one single little story… That man, still leaning against the door frame and watching her, suspected she was thinking exactly that but not a hint of it appeared on his face as he answered exactly as she had expected,

"I don't know. Yet."

_Thank God for that. Ilescu had done his job properly. _Finally she turned to look at him, face dispassionate and eyes expressionless.

"I can't feel sorry. He did try to kill me."

_Liar. That's what you wanted us to think. Unfortunately for you, we now know the truth about Veronica Duran and Rustam Ilescu. _Allowing a slight roughness to edge is voice and the merest hint of a wounded expression to be visible in his eyes, Harry responded,

"He denies that."

_Poor, dear Harry, so soft and vulnerable when it came to close relationships…_ It was exactly what he wanted her to think and he was content to see the thought flash through her eyes.

"He says—" he hesitated before painfully, delicately correcting himself, "He _said_ that he wasn't the person that's been running you."

"And you believe him?" Disbelief, hurt and betrayal was writ large across her fine features but her eyes were still calculating, wondering exactly how much he might have found out from the American before they had instigated the emergency extraction. Rustam Ilescu might have just earned the exhorbitant amount of money he and his cronies were charging, he had caught on quickly and acted efficiently this morning when diverted from his main operation. She just hoped they had acted in time.

"I'm inclined to." His answer was quiet and composed, despite the small amount of well-honed regret that he allowed to cross his features. Elena held his gaze for a moment before turning away and sitting, gracefully, on a spindly chair that was placed next to the fireplace. Shock of a sort, combined with confusion, had replaced the previous emotions and her movements echoed the feelings on her face but, now he could finally see clearly, there was something ever so slightly stilted and theatrical about the whole thing. The lady was acting just a little too over-wrought…

Deciding to go on the attack, she asked,

"But who would be so desperate to kill the partnership, as America?" It was a perfectly reasonable question, even if it did pre-suppose that Uncle Sam cared one way or the other about a partnership between a failed super-power and a collapsed empire, but he was well aware that she was trying to deflect him from the dangerous path he was on, which proved that she was getting rattled. Excellent.

When he didn't respond she realised that she would have to keep pushing. They didn't have long left to destroy this partnership and stymie Putin's latest plan to be seen as a mover and shaker on the global stage, a week if what Ilya had said this morning was true, so she had to keep his attention diverted from the truth and, quite often, the best form of defence was attack. She knew he wouldn't have an answer.

"If it was not Jim then who, Harry?"

Shrugging, he finally hauled himself off the door-frame that he had been leaning against and walked into the room to join her.

o O o

At the Home Office Ruth had, in no uncertain terms and with a rather peremptory manner, booted out the lobbyists who were currently occupying the spare chairs in Towers' office and shut the door in their protesting faces after ordering her PA, Margot, to see them out. The Home Secretary himself had looked rather surprised by this sudden display of pushiness by his security advisor but one look at her face made him bite back the smart comment he had been about to come out with and instead he asked,

"I presume this is about Coaver and Harry. What's happened?"

And so she had told him. As she spoke she could see the colour draining from his face and his blue eyes got wider and wider as the implications sank in. Something she had discovered about her new employer over the few days she had been with him was that the air of buffoonery that could cling to him in public was a rather clever smoke-screen: in his office, away from lobbyists and other sycophants, he had a laser-like intelligence and attention to detail that rivalled Harry's and her own, if accompanied by a rather more ribald sense of humour. As she had come to expect he processed the information quickly and homed in on the salient point. Breathing out carefully he said,

"Jesus Christ, Ruth, if our American friends are right about this then we could be looking at something more than the destruction of a political partnership. How desperate are these people?"

"We don't know but Jim Coaver seemed to think they would stop at nothing by this stage. They're after Putin and his government, one way or the other, so even if the partnership deal goes ahead that won't necessarily stop them."

He stared at her, totally nonplussed. Whatever he had thought was going on it wasn't this.

"What do we know about them? What are they called again?"

"RussiaFirst." There was an unseemly glint in her own blue eyes and it suddenly occurred to Towers that his security advisor was enjoying this far too much. He had hoped that by getting her away from Section D she would have a chance to expand and explore her own potential but here she was, only a few days out, getting sucked back into the swirling adrenaline vortex that was Thames House. And Harry Pearce, of course. Always Harry. "The CIA have given us copies of their files on them but at this stage I don't know any more than they told us in the meeting. I will go through it and get back to you. However, they are a serious and credible threat. They did attempt to kill Jim Coaver as well as almost certainly being responsible for Max Witt and Tariq."

They stared at each other in silence for a few more moments before the woman made a move to stand up and head back out to her desk.

"Ruth?" She stopped and looked back at him, unreadable. "What do you suggest we do about this?"

Her expression barely changed, apart from the faintest glimmer of what might have been a smile.

"Let Harry and Jim have their heads and play whatever role they want us to play, William. That way we might achieve both the partnership and the destruction of Elena Gavrik and her friends."

o O o

_Good. Her question gave him the perfect opportunity to throw a grenade of his own, hopefully knock her supreme self-belief for a bit of a six. _He would come at it in a slightly roundabout way, though. Now standing by the window and steadfastly looking out so she couldn't see his face, Harry asked,

"Ilya. Has he changed over the years?"

_What? What was that about? _The question was unexpected and her nonplussed response was genuine.

"How do you mean?"

"As a man. As a – husband." He was still gazing out the window, left hand resting on the shutters, right hand in his pocket, hoping he had the tone of voice right as his words softened her up. He could just see the nose of the obbo van, parked further down the street, but neither Silva nor Defoe were in sight. Good. He hoped everyone was picking up what was being said clearly, either from his wire or the bugs, including the one on the back of the clock that Elena had been so lovingly fondling. With a bit of luck they were getting all of this down from each source.

"It took me many years to see him as that," she replied hesitantly, wondering where exactly he was going with this. "To begin with I felt like he was—" she hesitated again and shook her head, her voice registering distaste as she added "—my captor." _Liar. Again. _Knowing the truth, that it was more the other way around, Harry's face hardened momentarily before he schooled his expression back into something more sympathetic as he slowly turned to face her, ready to listen to the rest of her lies as he walked slowly over to join her. "But after a while I realised we were both trapped, in our own ways, me by my betrayal and him by his duty." _Poor, lovely, innocent little thing, in trouble because of her honourable attempts to help her country against the communist menace and showing so much empathy for the equally poor man she'd __**had**__ to marry to cover her tracks._ It was enough to make him want to throw up, the blatant insincerity of it all, sickeningly sugar-coated in a deadly chemical sweetener that was more toxic than anything you would put in your tea or coffee. He forced the thought away, concentrating instead on admiring her performance. She was good, he would give her that: if he didn't know any different now he would still be inclined to believe her, as he had done for so long. Arrogant, hormone-driven idiot that he had been. Not any more, though. The arrogance had been beaten out of him, one way or the other, long since and the hormones had been succumbing to encroaching age for years… It was time he started to twist his own tale to achieve their ends. Putting on a slightly puzzled face he said,

"For a man you betrayed so completely, you speak fondly of him."

Large, innocent, sorrowful hazel eyes had gazed back up at him as he started speaking, the sorrow swiftly replaced by righteous outrage. She thought she could see what he was up to now, trying to undermine her relationship with Ilya to prop up their own but she wouldn't have it: both men were serving their purpose and would be discarded as and when appropriate, when _she _decided. With Harry that would be as soon as she had used him to destroy the partnership; Ilya would come on board with RussiaFirst after that, she was absolutely certain of that, but if not... Injecting some passion into her voice for the first time in this meeting, she responded,

"For all I hated his beliefs, the system that he defended, he was a good man then and he is a good man now." The Englishman looked slightly crestfallen, as though he had been hoping to hear something else so she decided to increase the pressure and use the trigger that had always worked before, arising out of that brilliant flash of inspiration that had come to her, soon after she found out she was carrying Sasha, and had kept this man tied to her and under her control for three decades. Her face hardened and her eyes returned to a cold, reptilian stare as she added in a voice that was nonetheless throbbing with emotion, "He never left me standing in Treptower Park with Sasha, waiting for an extraction that never came."

_Here we go again,_ he thought, turning away once more while allowing the look of guilt and shame that he knew she was expecting to see flood his face. Now he really did feel sick but it was with disgust and a growing loathing. No more shame and the only guilt he would feel from now on was for putting himself in a position that allowed her to use him to manipulate the boy. Sasha might not be his but no parent should even consider using their child like that. If they did, they were little more than a monster.

When he didn't say anything she finally sighed, apparently pulling herself together and said,

"Why are you asking about Ilya?"

For a second he continued his silence before stating, carefully, unemotionally,

"I don't believe Jim Coaver was behind what's been happening." He looked sad as he dropped his grenade. "Which only leaves Ilya."

_Shit!_ She couldn't let him go down that track. Ilya was of more long-term use than he was but, like Harry, knew absolutely nothing of the truth at the moment and that had to be protected, which meant Ilya had to be protected from Harry if that's the direction his thoughts had turned. Maybe they had miscalculated by getting rid of Coaver. _No, that had been necessary. The American was a far greater and more direct threat than some vague idea of Harry's of going after Ilya instead. As if he had a chance against her husband, anyway. _

"No!" she protested, suddenly standing up and walking forward, towards the door. Neither of them looked at each other; Harry was studying the floor and Elena was staring out into the hallway as she paced, eventually turning towards him. "Ilya is a modernist, a politician, he has put all that behind him." _Yes, he is, and just how do you reconcile that with __**your **__twisted beliefs? But, rest assured, he most certainly has __**not **__put the rest of it behind him, he's just out-sourced it. _She missed the cynical disbelief that was, for a moment, clear in the man's dark eyes as he lifted his head to face her.

"You can't put it behind you. Look at us." He turned his face away again as she shook her head, slowly dawning realisation evident. _Okay, if that's how he wanted to play it, maybe she could use that to their advantage, deflecting him, while protecting her main asset._ Outwardly distressed, she answered,

"It can't be Ilya." Walking in front of him to make him look at her and make the jealousy she could tell was there bite a little deeper she went on, "I share his bed, I would be able to tell."

_Oh good, she's just given me another opportunity to sow a little more doubt._

"Maybe he kept it from you most of all, Elena." The voice was soft, even, the face expressionless apart from a little, slightly patronising note that she thought she saw. _Pandering to the biddable housewife asset that she was – how little he knew and how wrong he was. But she would continue to play the role if it kept him in his place._

"What are you saying? That he might know about us?" The fear was suddenly palpable in her voice and eyes. _Oh yes, she deserved an Oscar nomination for this performance. Poor bloody Ilya – he'd only been subjected to this show intermittently over a very few years but for Gavrik it had been all day, every day, since the late 1970s_. Time to twist the knife a little.

"We cannot underestimate him."

Tears welled in her eyes and her gaze darted around the room for a moment, as though seeking an escape, before locking onto his again as she lifted her right hand to gently rest against his lips in a way that he had enjoyed, at a physical level, back in the day but now just made him want to cringe. Unable to stand it any more he lifted his own hand to take hers in his and gently push hers away. "Elena…"

She pulled his hand towards her own face, to rest there gently for a moment as she fought to stop the tears from spilling over. What she said next, though, was the last straw.

"Kiss me. It is the least that you can do."

In the obbo van Calum and D'wane raised their eyebrows at each other over their takeaway coffees but resisted saying anything; back on the Grid Erin nearly choked and hissed poisonously, covering the microphone so she wouldn't distract Harry,

"Dear God, she's really pulling out all the stops, isn't she?" while in the back-rooms of the Embassy, listening in on a hastily organised relay from the obbo van, Brontee gasped and murmured,

"She has to be kidding, right?"

Jim shook his head and also covered up his mic before replying.

"I'm afraid not. This is typical of Elena but I believe Hal might genuinely have her concerned, at least at some level. She's certainly pressing every one of his buttons in trying to get him off track."

She was crying now but all Harry felt was revulsion and loathing. Jesus Christ, they hadn't seen each other for 26 years – they weren't even the same people now! – and she thought she could just go straight back to the old behaviour and have him under the thumb again. Well, not any more and never again. Knowing what she would do next he moved to avoid it – he might have fancied her back then but his tastes had changed considerably since – so he drew her into a hug, squeezing her tightly and murmuring what he knew she expected him to say,

"Elena, I'm sorry," into her ear as he stared at the wall over her shoulder, briefly allowing himself to express every ounce of the disgust he was feeling in his face although the tone of his words were the direct opposite. "I could have done so much more."

"Please, please, don't let it be him," she sobbed onto his shoulder as they continued to hold each other. She couldn't see the abhorrence on his face; he couldn't see the triumph on hers, as she silently celebrated getting him back where she wanted him. They didn't move for a few more long moments before the women pulled herself together and drew back from the embrace, unconsciously straightening her jacket. Delicately wiping at her eyes she looked at him and saw nothing but heart-break and guilt written there and was satisfied. Glancing at her watch she finally added, "I can't stay, Harry. If what you say is true then we are both in more danger than either of us thought." She allowed a little panic to creep into her voice. "If anyone finds out we were here…"

He nodded, silent, as she picked up her clutch bag and moved towards the door. He followed her into the hallway and eventually said, as he opened the door for her again,

"Be careful, Elena."

She stared at him for a moment, eyes wide, before drawing a deep breath and walking down the stairs and onto the footpath, turning away from the door and the obbo van without a backwards glance. Harry closed the door again and returned to the window in the parlour, face impassive as he watched her sail down the street until she was out of view. Giving her another few moments he asked of the empty room,

"Is she gone?"

"Yes, Sir," D'wane's voice answered promptly.

"Did you get all of that?"

"Loud and clear, Harry," came Calum's response as he was in the act of backing up the files.

"All good here, Harry," was Erin's response, fainter but still clear.

"What did you think, Jim?" was the next question as the Englishman started to retrieve his bugs.

"I think you got to her, my friend. She didn't like it when you pointed the finger at Ilya."

"No, she wouldn't. That was the point. He's not only been her protector for decades but he's also her emergency escape so the thought of him being threatened should at least give her pause." He picked up the last bug from the hall-stand, deactivated it and headed for the door. "The question is, what next? How are your guests, Jim?"

A slightly evil chuckle came down the line.

"Being ministered to by Tallulah. I'll be down there in a few minutes to see how she's going. Not that she's ever needed any help before. I'll ring you once I know more."

"Thanks. Calum, drop D'wane at the Embassy on the way back. Time is of the essence, we need to get back together to decide which way to go next."

"Right you are, boss."

"Sir?" D'wane's question broke in just as Harry was about to remove his wire.

"Yes, D'wane?"

"If it's okay with you and Director Coaver, do you mind if I come back with Calum? He's told me about the car and I can pick up something on the way through that might help to check it, plus sit in on the next discussion, if you think it would be useful. I'm up to speed on everything we have."

"It's fine by me, Hal," was Coaver's disembodied response. Harry considered for another moment as he locked the front door and headed for the Audi. It might be handy to have one of the CIA crew on hand: although they had handed over copies of everything they had, none of his team had had anywhere near the opportunity to do more than skim it.

"Very well. Erin, organise Agent Brandon's visitor's clearance. They're on their way back."

"Yes, Harry."

"Going off comms."

Once in the car he removed the wire and allowed himself a moment to breathe. Until this morning he would never, in his wildest dreams, have imagined such a complete turn-around in his life but, now it had happened, it was absolute and irreversible. The old saying was that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned; well, Hell was about to have a new benchmark set as Harry Pearce went about extracting revenge for being screwed over for thirty years. Elena and her nebulous friends in RussiaFirst were going to pay dearly for those decades, if it was the last thing he ever did.


	4. Chapter 4

**4. The Grid. 14:45 hours.**

Everyone had hastily reconvened in the main meeting room for a debrief and planning session. Agent Brandon was looking around with interest, taking it all in and coming to a similar conclusion as Harry had – there wasn't much difference in their working environments after all. Erin and Dimitri were looking at him with the same amount of interest: an operative from another service, let alone the CIA, was a rare beast on the floor of the Grid so they were both interested to see what he did next, particularly the woman, who had had little exposure to working with anyone outside of MI5. Despite being disconcerted by the first five minutes of being squashed into the back of the obbo van together, Calum had quickly discovered D'wane shared his passion for high-tech geekery and they had got on like a house on fire since, to the extent that Harry had to tell the pair of them to shut up when he first walked in and sat down. Noting the expressions that had flashed between the group as he entered the room Harry had sighed, rolled his eyes and said,

"The answer, for those of you who are dying of curiosity, is no, I did not accede to the lady's request. I would sooner kiss a snake." D'wane and Calum couldn't resist a grin while Dimitri merely nodded in his imperturbable manner and Erin looked relieved. "Now, can we get on? I believe we achieved our objective in confirming what she wanted to hear about Jim whilst sowing a few seeds of doubt about our plans. Now, we need to decide what those plans are going to be. Does anyone have an update on anything?"

"We've managed to contact Kuzin. He's curious about what we've got so we will be seeing him in an hour," Dimitri said quietly. It had been ridiculously easy: they had made a direct approach, mentioned the words RussiaFirst and Gavrik, and the Russian had invited them to talk, meeting up at a café about half-way between their respective offices.

"Good. Keep him interested but don't give him everything, not until he can give us something in return. Preferably Mikhail Levrov." Turning to the other pair Harry added, "You two?"

The younger men glanced at each other before D'wane placed something that looked suspiciously like a smart-phone, but presumably wasn't, on the table.

"We stopped off at the Embassy and picked this up, Sir. Along with Calum's equipment we should be able to scan your car for any likely bugs that Sasha Gavrik may have planted this morning as well as find out how they work, without alerting him."

"We need your keys, Harry."

Without another word Harry pulled the keys out of his pocket and threw them across the table to his techie, who caught them one-handed and slipped them into his own pocket.

"Very well. Now, where to next? D'wane, did you see Jim or Tallulah to find out how they're going?"

"Yes, Sir. The guests in the basement were folding fairly quickly once we found the right triggers and no, I am not at liberty to divulge what they were! Agent Zanon is legendary in our service for being able to get people to talk without laying a finger on them." He wasn't about to mention that at least one of those triggers had been the live link to a CIA facility in Dallas where Ilescu's former partner and five year old daughter were being held.

"Somehow, I can believe that," Harry muttered, thinking of those unfathomable black eyes boring into him at their meeting earlier in the day. He was well aware of the efficacy of psychological warfare and somehow he knew that Tallulah would indeed be an expert in it. A quick grin had flashed across Brandon's face before his expression returned to serious-CIA-agent mode.

""Director Coaver would like you to call him once we're done here but according to Ilescu the next move is a car bomb attack on your Home Secretary." There was a sharp intake of breaths around the room.

"When?" Erin's voice was sharp as she beat Harry to the question by a nano-second.

"Later this afternoon, Ma'am." That made her feel old. She knew he was younger than she was but still the old-fashioned courtesy left her nonplussed. "Apparently he had a meeting in Grosvenor Square with the Ambassador and the attack was planned for when he is on his way back. There is some talk of allowing it to go ahead, in a controlled manner, to let RussiaFirst think they are still in control but the Director wants to discuss that with you."

The blond man nodded curtly, silently breathing a sigh of relief that Ruth wasn't in the room. He knew what her reaction would be to that suggestion…

"He may well be right. I will contact both Jim and William Towers shortly." He tapped his fingers slowly on the table surface for a moment, thinking, before glancing at the American again and asking, "For interest's sake, Agent Brandon, what would your people do if she had succeeded: if Jim really had died?" A silent _frisson _went around the room as everyone considered just how close that had come to really being the case; looking around, D'wane saw Dimitri gazing at him with intense interest behind the somewhat phlegmatic façade – with his military background, there was little that could surprise him, it was all merely interesting; Erin, sitting next to the former special services operative, showed the same interest with a brighter expression. Calum, next to D'wane, merely cocked an encouraging eyebrow at him. Finally returning to the man sitting at the head of the table, he faced those dark eyes that were both gently encouraging and empathic yet with something so unnervingly unforgiving behind them that the young man suddenly broke into a sweat. Coughing to clear his throat he finally answered,

"Well, Sir, we would go after whoever was responsible, and go after them hard. As I would expect your people here would target anyone who took out you."

The dark eyes didn't waver and Brandon was starting to understand how a deer felt in the headlights. The soft, mellifluous voice came again.

"And if, this morning, for example, Tallulah Zanon had not been there to see the truth and Jim had died?"

D'wane swallowed. He had heard on the grapevine about Raul's blotting of his copy book this morning and could see where this was heading. Hating to admit it he said,

"Then we would probably be very interested in talking to you, Sir. You had kid-napped the Director, we knew that; if you had been found with him under the same circumstances as this morning but with him deceased then…" His voice tailed off and he dropped his eyes to the wooden desk-top, embarrassed. Harry finished for him.

"That would have been considered _prima facie _evidence of guilt until proven otherwise."

"Yes, Sir." He was barely audible and was wishing the floor would open up beneath him. It was all true but, said so baldly, was clearly preposterous and he suddenly had a glimmering of insight into why his Service was occasionally viewed so disparagingly around the world. The others were feeling sorry for the young American as Harry continued to stare at him with an unblinking gaze for a few more moments, unaware that their boss was actually considering whether what had been said might be of use in their current situation. He decided it might be and relaxed back into his seat.

"Good. We may be able to use that. Would you two like to be released to go and check my vehicle?"

The relief that washed over Agent Brandon's face was almost comical. Jim Coaver was a hard task-master but he had a feeling he'd scored the lucky end of the deal compared to Calum, who had to deal with Harry Pearce every day…

"Right, we're on it." Calum didn't waste any time in seizing the opportunity to escape, pushing his chair back and standing up. "Come on, D'wane, time is of the essence. We don't have time to sit around contemplating our navels the way you lot do."

"No, you just sit on your ass listening to the cricket or football instead." The young American reacted with almost the same alacrity, grabbing his phone-like device and following the other man to the door.

"A Yank who knows what cricket and football is! There's hope for the world yet…" was the last the trio remaining in the meeting room heard as the pair disappeared down the corridor towards the pods. Silence fell for a few moments before Dimitri spoke quietly.

"What happens if they find something?"

Harry re-focussed his attention from the ceiling to the pair sitting off to his left.

"We find a way to use it to our advantage. If Sasha wants something to listen to, we will give it to him, with bells on. He's working with his mother, although I believe it's unwitting of her political connection to RussiaFirst. She is certainly using him. We might as well join the party." His voice was colder than an arctic blizzard but they could both see the shadows in his eyes and were suddenly uncomfortable. He relieved them of saying anything further by standing up and dismissing the pair of them back to their desks to continue studying the CIA files while heading back to his own office to think. A glimmer of a plan was emerging. It would be dangerous but if it worked he would have them. All of them.

Ten minutes later he was reaching for the secure line on his desk to call Jim when the youngsters bounded back onto the floor of the Grid and over to his door.

"We've got it, Harry," Calum announced with the air of a man well-satisfied with his day's work as he flung the door open and walked in, D'wane following with a little more circumspectly. He knew by now what Jim Coaver's reaction would be to such a peremptory entry into his office and was surprised that Calum hadn't been similarly roared at; then he looked at Harry's face, saw the expression of long-suffering annoyance on it, and realised it was only the urgency of their current circumstance that had allowed his new friend to get away with it.

"Got what, exactly?" the older man grated. "Plague? Dengue fever? Or a one-way ticket to Hell?"

The young techie grinned.

"It's a bug, alright, but not one of those!"

Harry sighed and leaned back in his seat.

"I'm had a long day already, Mr Reid, and my telepathic abilities are beginning to wane. Would one of you please explain, succinctly and in words a dinosaur can understand, before said dinosaur presents you with said ticket to Hell?"

"It's a transmitter, Sir, tiny, stuck to the outside of the passenger's seat," D'wane replied, waving his little gadget. "Tuned to be activated to the frequency modulation and amplitude ranges of the human voice and nothing else, it's passive otherwise – won't be turned on by road noise, for example, or by music from the sound system below a certain decibel frequency, or above an upper limit, either. Looks like it's programmed to automatically shut-down after three minutes of silence."

"It's got some sort of auto-squelch programming as well, to filter out background noise, so whoever's on the receiving end would have a nice, clear signal relayed to them," Calum added. "Nice bit of kit, really."

"Not that nice, otherwise you wouldn't have found it that quickly." He took a breath, knowing the answer. "I don't suppose you know who's on the receiving end?"

The two young men glanced at each other and the smiles vanished off their faces.

"Yes, Sir. You are right, it's not that sophisticated. I got Calum to set it off for me. It rings a mobile phone as soon as it's activated."

"Sasha Gavrik's phone," Calum clarified, carefully. Harry nodded, once.

"Well, at least that confirms it."

After a moment's silence D'wane asked,

"What's next, Sir?"

"That's something we need to discuss." Glancing up through the glass windows of the office he could see Dimitri but there was no sign of Erin. "Chase up Erin and Dimitri and join me in the meeting room in ten minutes. I need to talk to Jim."

They were all ready and waiting when he joined them after the phone call. Coaver had sounded slightly weary and a little doped-up but it had been an interesting conversation. There had been a plan to bomb the Home Secretary; Morales wasn't giving anything away ("Yet!" Jim had said) but Milic had admitted to the plan, after a little persuasion, and Ilescu had provided the details, once the "appropriate trigger" was used. Raul and a team had been despatched to the site where the vehicle was being prepared, to either make it safe or adapt it. It hadn't taken long for the two men to decide to adapt it. He quickly ran through a summary of that and got Calum to present a _précis_ of the bugging.

"Now we need to decide where to go with this information. We are going ahead with the bombing to continue to make Elena and her friends think the plan is proceeding as they want. I know Sasha is helping his mother but I believe it is because he thinks he is trying to protect her from us and the CIA, not because he is part of RussiaFirst. You haven't found any evidence to the contrary, have you, D'wane?"

The American shook his head decisively.

"No, Sir. If anything, Sasha and his father actively avoid the Levrov and Zykov families. We are unsure if Colonel Gavrik is aware of the truth behind his wife's "arrest" by Levrov back in the eighties but we think he is at least suspicious of it and despises them as a result. There is no love lost between Gavrik senior, Putin and RussiaFirst, Sir, and that attitude seems to extend to the son."

"If that's the case, why bug your car?" Erin asked, wrinkling her brow. "It doesn't make much sense."

"It might if he's suspicious of your intentions. Maybe he's playing his own game," Dimitri commented. "Unaware of what his mother is really up to, of course. Presumably she's been selectively feeding him information about her history with you and Jim."

"Very likely, Dimitri. Whatever the case, I think we should leave the bug where it is and use it to draw him into our game. Get him thinking we are all going after his father. Get him thinking we have information to prove his father's connection to Jim's 'death'." The older man's voice had returned to being glacial and there was a glitter in his eyes that was going to be unhealthy for someone. D'wane started to sweat again, gently: this man sitting opposite him, pushing sixty, balding, slightly tubby, unremarkable enough to meld into the background of any setting he was in, for some reason terrified him today. Especially when he used that tone of voice. There had been something similar in Jim Coaver's voice or eyes at times over the past few weeks so he wondered just how frightening the pair of them could be when they were working together. It looked like he was about to find out.

"Sir?" he asked, an idea popping into his head.

"Yes, D'wane?"

"What if we use the Director's laptop as bait for Sasha?"

The others in the room looked at him blankly.

"Sorry, you'll have to expand on that one, mate," Calum said for them all.

"Well, he's been consolidating all the data on his laptop as well as to the network. If he was dead that would have been the first thing we recovered from his room. Perhaps we can use the bug to let Sasha know about its existence and set up a dummy one for one of you to come and get, using it to draw him out somehow. Use it to destabilise him and perhaps distract Elena, if he is her weak point. He doesn't appear to have inherited any of Ilya's cold consideration, at least according to Director Coaver, so it should be easy enough."

Erin, Dimitri and Calum exchanged glances – it was audacious, but it might work – before turning their attention to Harry, to find him contemplating the young American with an expression that showed he was reassessing that gentleman's abilities. Upwards.

"You may be on to something there, Agent Brandon." He made a decision and glanced at his watch. "Erin, you and Dimitri keep your appointment with Kuzin. You had better get going or you will be late. Calum, go with D'wane back to Grosvenor Square. The pair of you use your sense to decide what exactly you put on the fake lap-top. I will ring Jim again and let him know what's happening, and Towers. I will also try to talk to Ruth: we might be able to get her to accompany Towers to the meeting and pick the thing up. We can probably assume that RussiaFirst is no longer watching the Embassy but I would rather not use anyone who can be tracked directly back here so Ruth would be ideal. D'wane, if we do get Ruth in there, can you organise one of your people to shadow her on her way out? For safety's sake?" He didn't mention the name Sasha but then he didn't have to. Everyone understood what he meant.

"Yes, Sir."

"Very well. Erin, if you need to pick D'wane's brains before you go to your meeting I suggest you do so now." She nodded but when no-one made a move Harry barked, "Go, the lot of you!"


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Café, Knightsbridge/The Grid and The Home Office/US Embassy. 15:45 hours.**

Kuzin was there before them. Very tall, with shaggy white-blond hair, a neatly trimmed beard and built like a bear, they felt his grey eyes on them before they spotted him sitting at the back of the room, watchfully observing the patrons and the door. The veriest inclination of his head indicated that he had recognised them so they made their way through the tables to join him. If ever there was a physical archetype of a stereotype, Evgeny Petrovitch Kuzin was it for the typical Russian but there was nothing of the serf about him: a fierce intelligence shone from those eyes as, gravely courteous, he stood as they approached, shook hands with a firm grip and vastly surprised Erin by pulling a chair out for her before resuming his own.

"Thank you for agreeing to see us at such short notice, Captain." Dimitri said as they settled themselves. A waitress appeared at their shoulder and coffees were ordered to go with the Russian's tea before he responded,

"It is a pleasure, Swimmer-Canoeist Levendis. M-Squadron, Special Boat Service, was it not? Several tours of Afghanistan, among other places."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. Two could play at that game.

"Indeed, Captain. Northern and Pacific fleets, initially on destroyers but mostly on submarines, including Akula-class nuclear ballistic missile subs. You spent a lot of time around Murmansk and Vladivostok, I believe, before deploying to Moscow in 2002."

The Russian smiled brightly.

"Oh, I saw a little more of the world than that, young man!" The smile vanished as fast as it had appeared. "Although perhaps not as actively as you."

Erin could see the conversation rapidly heading in the wrong direction and coughed discretely.

"I am sure there will be other times for you two to discuss things naval but in the meantime there are more urgent issues at hand, gentlemen. Might we get on?"

Dimitri looked suitably chastened; Kuzin gave a charming smile.

"My apologies, Miss Watts. We old sailors cannot help ourselves." The smile faded again. "RussiaFirst and the Gavrik family. That is a bait no-one could resist. Where do we start?"

o O o

At about the same time as Erin and Dimitri were deep in conversation with Evgeny Kuzin, Harry was heading down to the basement to pick up his car. Courtesy of Ruth's background details his conversation with her new boss had been short and to the point. Towers had wanted more information on RussiaFirst that neither Ruth nor Harry could provide and so had agreed to seek out Jim Coaver or one of his crew during his visit to the Embassy later in the afternoon; he had been less keen about the entire bomb scenario and Ruth had been vocal in the background expressing her objection to the idea but in the end, having been assured several times that it would be all smoke and noise, he had agreed to play his part there, too. Then had come the hard part. When he had first broached the idea of Ruth picking up the laptop she had flatly refused: she was no longer a member of the intelligence service, she thought this entire plan was fraught with danger and she wanted no part of it.

"I'm tired of being used, Harry," were her final words. In his office, the man scrubbed at his face, suddenly tired beyond belief. He would have to find someone else, it would have to be Calum, there was no-one else available at such short notice this afternoon. He supposed it would still make sense to Sasha if he was to have an off-the-record 'chat' to Calum rather than Ruth— The Home Secretary was speaking.

"If you won't do it for MI5, Ruth, then consider doing it for me. We have an opportunity here to destroy a powerful force for bad that we didn't even know existed until today – a destabilised Russia doesn't bear thinking about, they're enough of a problem as it is – so we need to act on it while we can. What Harry is suggesting makes perfect sense and, if it is you, the Russians won't even suspect it's a trap. I'm about to go through a bombing attempt as part of this; I'm sure your part is more important and probably less dangerous. Please, Ruth. We need you for this."

Harry could just picture her reaction: she would be frozen to the spot, wringing her hands or twisting something between her fingers but her eyes would be like ice and she would be almost shaking with barely repressed fury. As it happened, he was perfectly correct. She was standing in Towers' office, glaring at him, twisting a pen between her fingers and unable to believe that this was happening to her. Although, buried so deeply she could barely acknowledge it, was a growing, creeping sense of excitement as well.

"You won't be on your own, Ruth." Harry's velvet tones sounded a little tinny coming out of the speakerphone. "Once you're back on the outside you will be being shadowed by the CIA."

"Oh, that will be a _lot _of help, I'm sure," she spat, unimpressed. "This is Sasha Gavrik we're talking about, Harry."

"He won't hurt you. It's the laptop he will want and he won't risk doing anything stupid in public. He may not be the calmest of young men but he's not stupid. He won't attempt anything in public. And you will be wired. Calum will be inside the Embassy and we can get Tallulah Zanon outside as well, if that is of any help."

"He killed his best friend, remember?"

He wasn't likely to forget.

"In private, after a fight and because he was desperate to protect his mother. You will be giving him the computer without much of an argument. He will have no reason to do anything except take it."

Slightly mollified and with that sense of excitement slowly growing in the pit of her belly she continued to glare at Towers, who, surprisingly (or maybe not) was _not_ wilting under the power of it, as she muttered,

"You pair of bastards. I really have no choice, do I?"

At his desk, Harry sagged in relief.

"Yes, you do," he said quietly. "You can refuse but I need to know now."

"Oh, I will do it." She sounded bitter, he thought, and was distressed but they had no time for anything else. He doubted if she would let him make it up to her, in any way, but he would try.

"Thank you, Ruth." The two men spoke in unison but she interrupted again before either could say any more.

"Save it. It looks like my place in the scheme of things hasn't changed even though my place of employment has. What is the plan?"

They had spent a couple of more minutes organising meeting points and working out what to discuss that would sound real before both headed to their vehicles.

o O o

At Grosvenor Square D'wane and Calum had called in on Jim as soon as they arrived. His skin was becoming more technicolour with every passing hour and it was noticeable that he was now nursing his right arm and shoulder but otherwise the drugs were still clearly working as he sat them down and interrogated them on what was happening. Having just finished talking to Harry as the young men arrived he already knew most of it anyway but still wanted to hear their thoughts. On the subject of the laptop trap he was completely in agreement and they spent a little time discussing what would be the most useful information to put on it ('to wind Sasha up the most effectively", as Calum put it) as well as ways to safeguard Ruth afterwards.

"Do we know where Sasha is at the moment?"

"Yes, Sir," D'wane replied. "One of my team was on watch and has followed Ilya and Sasha to yet another meeting with the British government. They've been in there for about ten minutes."

Coaver nodded.

"Good. Tell them to stay with Sasha once he comes out. We know Ilya doesn't matter at this stage of the game." Picking up his desk phone he punched a number in. "Brontee, has Tallulah surfaced from entertaining our guests yet?" The answer was clearly in the affirmative as he added, "Good, can you send her in when she gets back? Thanks."

Hanging up, he returned his attention to the pair sitting on the other side of his desk.

"Very well. I will send Tom Defoe out after Ms Evershed, you keep your tail on Sasha and I will get Tallulah out there as well." His mobile rang. "Raul. What's happening?"

While he was talking Calum cocked an eyebrow at D'wane and mouthed,

"Tallulah?" at him. Brandon leaned closer and murmured,

"She's able to vanish into the background. And she's a crack shot."

"Ahhh," Calum breathed, understanding. _Just in case Sasha did decide to do something stupid…_

Jim terminated the call.

"They are just about ready to go so you two had better get on with it. I need to brief the Ambassador again."

"Sir." D'wane almost snapped a salute while Calum just grinned and said,

"Right you are, Jim."

The older man sighed and shook his head.

"I've been trying to get this lot to drop the Sir for weeks and got nowhere; you've been here five minutes and we're on first-name terms already, hey, Cal?"

Unabashed, Calum got to his feet, still grinning, well aware of the slightly shocked discomfort on Brandon's face.

"Well, it's easier for me, Jim, I never started calling you Sir in the first place!"

"Get off your asses and get going, the pair of you!"

Watching them leave and reflecting on how enjoyable watching the shock on D'wane's face had been, Jim slowly hauled himself to his feet and started to limp towards the door. His entire right side was seizing up and hurting like hell but he didn't have time to indulge it. Matters were moving ahead ever more rapidly so they had all better be ready for whatever came next.


	6. Chapter 6

**6. High-rise car park. 16:20 hours.**

The meeting place was in a high-rise car-park in an office block five minute's drive from their respective offices. At this hour of the day it was emptying rapidly so they managed to find a largely uninhabited area where they could park away from others, near the open wall overlooking the street (_might as well make it easy for Sasha, _Harry had said); she had seen his car disappearing up the ramp as she drove in and so had simply followed him. As she approached they were both feeling nervous: the subject matter of the conversation was not going to be comfortable for either of them but had to be said in order to get Sasha to take the bait. Harry was dreading it; in an odd sort of way, Ruth was looking forward to it. After learning what she had over the past few hours and then thinking about it, endlessly, she was no longer under any illusion that he had any feelings for Elena, apart from revenge, and that he had probably never really had any genuine ones, besides concern for her as Sasha's mother. The boy himself was a different issue but she could relate to that better: although Nico hadn't been hers, they had developed a close bond over the eighteen months in Cyprus and the gut-wrenching pain (and searing guilt) of how that had ended gave her what she thought was an acute insight into how Harry was feeling today, although his pain on finding out the truth must be significantly worse than what she had felt. She knew how much he loved his children, despite their fractious relationship, and to suffer through thirty years of separation from an eldest son only to find out he was no son at all must have been devastating. Let alone the effect of everything else attached to that situation.

Lifting a hand in greeting as she approached the car, she opened the door and slid inside, all of those thoughts still swirling in her mind. He smiled tentatively, unsure of his welcome.

"Just like old times."

She glanced over at him, seeing weary, wary eyes looking back at her.

"You look tired."

He continued gazing at her, out of unfathomable, dark depths that were making her more uncomfortable, so she looked down at the glove-box as he replied.

"I feel tired. I don't know who to trust any more. That includes myself."

_God, how freakish was that?_ She thought, Elena's words in the art gallery echoing around her mind.

"Huh." She couldn't stop the slightly bitter exclamation as she lifted her eyes to look out of the windscreen, past the grimy car-park wall to the almost as grimy building opposite.

"What?" he leaned forward a little, puzzled by her reaction. He had a sneaking suspicion that what they were about to go through wouldn't all be acting, or not from her side anyway. He didn't need it but he also couldn't blame her…

"Elena Gavrik said the same thing about you. That you couldn't even trust yourself." _That should have got Sasha's attention_, they both thought and they were right. In his position off to the side of the meeting room, he had just got his earphones in place and his heart had lurched at the mention of his mother. In the car, Ruth had turned to face Harry, daring him to say something but he didn't respond so she looked away and shook her head. "I didn't know what she meant." Gazing down at her hands twisting in her lap, she missed the total exhaustion that momentarily washed over his face. He was right, this wasn't acting. He wondered when Elena had come out with that one: probably early on, possibly when they had met up to exchange messages, but clearly she had been planting seeds in Ruth's mind almost from the first moment they had met. It was one of her skills, he reflected, equally bitterly: she was an expert at finding your weak point and then focussed in on it with the accuracy of a laser. In his case it was the potential in Sasha; for Ruth, it looked like she had decided it was the potential relationship with himself.

Resting his wrist on the steering wheel he leaned a little further towards her.

"You have the wrong idea about Elena and I." She glanced at him and he looked away, avoiding her eyes, his partly defeated face matching the resignation in his voice. "I don't blame you. Guilt can look a lot like love." That was only the truth but he wasn't sure if she would believe it. Heaving a sigh, he forced himself to carry on, remembering who the real target was and staring across her as he spoke as she continued to steadfastly stare ahead, out the windscreen. "I did try to extract Elena and Sasha from Berlin. I wanted to bring them here, to Britain." Sasha knew all that, it wouldn't be a surprise, but the next bit might be, depending on what, exactly, his mother had told him. He focussed on Ruth for a moment but she wasn't looking so he let his gaze slide away again. "It was Jim Coaver that stopped me." At that she finally looked back at him, reminded of their purpose. "But the reason I didn't tell you about her wasn't—" he hesitated for a moment, looking for an appropriate word and adding to the atmosphere of the performance in the process "—heartbreak." She looked at him, recognising the cost this was extracting from him but, in some odd way, almost enjoying observing his suffering. His next words made her deeply repent that observation. "It was shame." The expression on his face underlined the truth of that statement. There was real shame there, along with what appeared to be a good dose of self-loathing. "Shame at my own cowardice." _Cowardice that I hadn't taken on Jim's hollow threat. He had seen that Jim really didn't want to be behind that gun he was pointing at his head and that he probably would have succeeded if he had just called his bluff and walked away. But he hadn't. He had used the gun as the excuse to not finish the extraction. An extraction that he knew would have been pointless: if it had gone ahead, he would never have been able to see either of them again, for their own safety. At the deepest of levels he knew they were better off staying where they were. Now, of course, the truth had come out, making the whole episode even more pointless…_ He realised she was looking at him, intently, and finally met her eyes again. "Really, she's a stranger to me." She couldn't stop a flash of disbelief crossing her face, despite knowing that he was right, after what the CIA had revealed to them, was it only this morning? "But I feel this sense of – duty, to protect her—" he looked down, about to drop what he hoped would be another hook for their listener "—and him. The boy. Most of all."

For Ruth, this had stopped being an act again. She knew he was good, but the distress in his voice when talking about events that had happened while Ruth was still a school-girl was real, she had no doubt about that. Despite all the misunderstandings of recent years she could still recognise the truth at times like this, rare though those times were these days. Blowing out a breath she admitted slowly, hesitantly, thinking of George and Nico and the terrible, soul-crushing burden of guilt and remorse she had been carrying on that subject for the past two years, not least because she had, in some ways, been more fond of the son than of the father and how that now related to Harry and Sasha,

"Well, um, guilt is something I understand." She nodded to herself, relieved to have finally admitted it to him. "Jealousy, too," she added, looking over at him with a slightly self-deprecating smile, "it would seem." They gazed at each other, in another world for a moment, until she suddenly remembered. Her expression hardened a little as she drew the conversation away from dangerous ground and back on track. "But both of them can blind you to the truth."

He had turned to scan outside the area outside the vehicle but looked back at her, somewhat puzzled at the sudden change of tone.

"The truth?"

"You said yourself. Whoever's behind this knows about your shared history with Jim and Elena."

In the meeting room, Sasha sat up a little straighter, wondering what was about to come. So far, apart from the mention of the American, they hadn't discussed anything that he didn't already know from his mother.

_Ah. Excellent opening gambit, Ruth, _he thought, as he took her up on it.

"This is beginning to positively reek of Ilya Gavrik. Before Coaver died he said it was all in a file on his laptop."

"What?" Ruth's response reflected Sasha's own reaction. He had to get that laptop. _They could not seriously be thinking his father had anything to do with the attack on himself, let alone that on his wife? What possible evidence could they think they had?_

"They've taken that laptop to the American Embassy. Someone with a high level of diplomatic clearance—" the look he gave her was as subtle as an anvil falling from the sky, Sasha could probably _see _it from wherever he was listening in, let alone hear it, she thought "—might be able to lift it."

Continuing to act her part, and reflecting what her real reaction had been, she gave a quiet snort of disbelief as she turned away.

"Oh, bloody hell. No, you are not serious." She looked at him with something of the expression he guessed she had been pinning Towers to his chair with not so long back on her face.

"We'd give you the full backing of the Grid."

She had turned away again, to stare out the windscreen as she responded concisely,

"Harry, I'm a civil servant now." Looking across at him she spelled it out as though to someone who didn't quite understand English, repeating some of her words from earlier. "I have a P.A., called Margot. I don't work for the security services any more."

Looking away, she missed him taking a breath to deliver what he knew would be totally unexpected, to either listener.

"This will be the last time and I will take full responsibility for all my actions, and that includes everything I've asked you to do." She was shaking her head, still not looking, but wondering where he was heading with this elaboration. What he said next made her turn sharply back to face him. "I'm going to stand down after this mess. I'm going to resign my commission, whatever happens—"

"I'm not asking for that." That hadn't been a planned part of the conversation but his statement had been real. There was a note of finality in his voice and in his eyes which, combined with the utter exhaustion on his face, drove any doubt out of her mind about whether he was telling the truth. Suddenly, completely inappropriately, her heart leapt. Maybe that crazy idea revolving around a cottage in Suffolk wasn't so crazy after all.

"I know," he said, gently, as he watched the shock in her eyes ebb away, to be replaced by something else he couldn't quite identify. _Hope?_ "But we both know it's time."

They stared at each other again for a moment, half-forgetting the listener, before she broke the gaze to turn away again.

"Okay, so I find this – laptop. Then what?"

Grateful for the reminder, he assumed a business-like tone again.

"Bring it straight to me." Sasha's eyes narrowed at that. He would have to find a way to intercept the woman and that computer. "I need to see Jim's files before anybody else does."

Eyes locked, the woman raised a questioning eyebrow. Harry nodded and gave a thumbs up – that should have been enough to draw Sasha in.

"Very well," Ruth responded crisply, like him back in work mode. "I have to go. The Home Secretary has a meeting with the US Ambassador at five so I will accompany him and see what I can do."

"I will get the Grid onto organising your resources." As she opened the door and got out he added, "Thank you, Ruth."

Staring back at him, cold, she replied,

"The last time, Harry," before snapping the door closed and heading to her own vehicle without a backwards glance. Watching her drive away he felt the tension washing away with her. That had been significantly harder than he had thought it would be and had strayed further into personal territory than he would have wished so he was very glad it was over. Whether she recognised the truth or not, and whether that would do any good, he had no idea.


	7. Chapter 7

**7. American Embassy and surrounds. 17:00 hours.**

It had been a frantically busy forty minutes. Ruth had returned to the Home Office where nerves saw her pacing her office until it was time to go. Towers preceded her as they made a discrete convoy to Grosvenor Square, until she peeled off a couple of streets away to look for a park. Managing to find one in a side-street, adjacent to a building covered in scaffolding, she caught him up as they were approaching the entry.

"Ready, Ruth?"

"Yes." Her nervous smile belayed that comment but inside the excitement had overtaken the nerves and she was itching to get on. "You?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Harry had returned to the Grid and immediately got on to Jim for a mutual update. He was quietly relieved at the news that Ruth would have significant back-up afterwards, it was one less thing to worry about. The van was apparently already on its way to its meeting with the Home Secretary while the original bomber and his friends were still cooling their heels in the basement. Ilescu was showing signs of singing like the proverbial canary (_"I'm not going to ask how you're achieving that," _was Harry's comment, answered by an abrupt _"No, don't," _from the American), as was Milic although Morales was proving a tougher nut to crack. So far. _Once he realised he was going nowhere except on a one-way flight to a US military dark facility somewhere in the world he might change his mind_. Calum was the next to receive a phone call. He assured Harry that the laptop was ready and that they also had some comms gear for Ruth, which he would hand over with the laptop so at least that way they could listen in on whatever happened with Sasha. Harry asked if they knew where he was; D'wane, on the speaker-phone, said he had just had word that the Russian had left the meeting venue, alone – his father was still inside – and jumped into a taxi. His tail was following in another one and it looked like they were heading for the Embassy.

Hanging up, Harry allowed himself to feel the slightest spark of hope that it was all going to come together. They had set everything up and the next hour would show the truth of that thought. Voices from the floor of the Grid made him look up to see Erin and Dimitri returning from their meeting. They were looking happy so presumably it had gone well. Heading straight over to his door, Erin knocked and they walked in.

"Good news. Kuzin is on board. It seems they have been watching Levrov and his friends for decades – there is some sort of very bad blood between him and the Prime Minister going back to the 1980's – and have been quietly looking for a way to bring him and his party down for the past few years. We had a very full and frank discussion and they are happy to play whatever part is required. I believe they are ramping up their monitoring networks on Levrov and Zykov as we speak."

Harry was slightly surprised but then conceded to himself that times had changed, whether he liked it or not. Whatever Levrov had done to Putin, it had clearly earned his undying enmity so it was no wonder that one of the Prime Minister's staunchest supporters had jumped at the chance offered to destroy RussiaFirst and, in doing so, were giving one of their oldest enemies some useful assistance.

"Can we trust him?"

The other pair exchanged glances before Dimitri replied.

"Yes, Harry, I believe so. He's given us some further information to check, without asking for anything solid in return and is due to give us an update tomorrow morning."

"Very well. It goes against the grain but it may well be useful to have someone in Moscow. The next step in the plan is due to start as we speak so if you two want to continue working on the Russian connection then feel free. We should know within the hour if the bait has been taken."

Inside the Embassy Brontee Sorenson and Tom Defoe were waiting for the visitors and discretely took them off to their respective assignments with Jim Coaver and D'wane Brandon. Tallulah and Calum were with D'wane when Ruth arrived and she gave them a smile that was a compound of fear, relief and a touch of excitement.

"So, Boss, ready to go?" Calum asked with a sly grin. Her smile faded to exasperation as she recognised a not-so-gentle dig at her rank-pulling efforts of the morning and she replied, nerves making her waspish,

"Certainly, Technical Officer Reid, and if I were you and wanting to retain that position and _not_ be sent back to Section A, I would get on with running me through it!"

Unabashed, the younger man grinned and indicated the desk that D'wane was sitting behind. On it was a laptop – _the _laptop, she supposed – and a small plastic box. D'wane stood up, smiled encouragingly and held out his hand.

"Good afternoon, Ma'am. Agent D'wane Brandon. Pleased to meet you."

His hand shake was firm and there was something she liked about his old-fashioned courtesy so she responded in kind and took the opportunity to greet Tallulah Zanon again at the same time. Before she had time to say anything more Calum was sitting her down behind the desk and plunging into an explanation of what was on the machine, including the all-important password to finally access the information and an advisory that she would have five "attempts" to get it right. When she finally got into its system it was set to not time out which should allow Sasha more than enough opportunity to get into it. Once that explanation was finished D'wane launched on another one as he extracted a tiny receiver/transmitter for her ear which had enough power to last for several hours and would not interfere with her phone, if she needed to use it.

"Sasha won't be able to tell it's there?"

"No, Ma'am. It's cloaked so even if he had something to sweep with he wouldn't pick it up."

Tallulah finally spoke, quietly, as was her style.

"He is not the most temperate of young men, Miss Evershed. It won't even occur to him that this is a set up. He will be too keen to grab the machine and go."

Ruth glanced over at her, somehow reassured by her quiet, unflappable demeanour.

"I hope you're right, Agent Zanon."

The older woman gave her remote smile.

"We have been following him and his family for weeks and he has not the slightest idea. We are right. In any case, Tom and myself will be shadowing you so you will come to no harm."

Despite what she had said earlier Ruth felt a deep, instinctive trust in the whippet-thin, sinewy grandmother sitting in alert repose on the other side of the room. After their meeting earlier in the day she had pulled up the Home Office security files on both Tallulah and Brontee Sorenson and had been impressed by both. The younger woman was a graduate of Harvard with a first class degree in political science and international relations, spoke a couple of European languages as well as classical Arabic, several dialects of the same language and Hebrew and had been working for the CIA, first at Langley, then in Jerusalem and now London, for eight years. Tallulah Zanon was in another league. Of the last Cold War generation, like Harry and Jim Coaver, she had graduated from UCLA with a top degree in psychology and criminology and had initially worked for the US military before being recruited by the CIA. Gaining fluency in Russian, German, Polish, Serbian and Croatian she had come out of her field training top of the class and spent the last quarter of a century more or less permanently based in London (albeit with extended periods in the field) where her husband was a professor at the London School of Economics. There were no details but she was regarded as legendary among her own people and that relieved Ruth's anxieties more than a little.

D'wane had walked over to another computer set up in the corner and was asking her to test the bug, so she dragged her attention back to the present and they spent several minutes doing exactly that, making sure everything was working the way it should and that they could all read each other. Both Tom and Tallulah would be wired; D'wane and Calum would stay behind to monitor events. And then it was time to pack everything up and head out. Tallulah went ahead, to stake out Ruth's car, while Tom would discretely tail her during her walk back. Both were fully armed. Her nerves returned in full force as they walked the corridors back to the imposing entrance and allowed Tallulah a few minutes to get ahead. Then it was her turn to go. With Tom Defoe watching, Ruth squared her shoulders and headed back out into the late afternoon glow.

When Towers was shown into Coaver's office he came to a sudden halt, unprepared for the sight that met him. Much as he was aware of the dark side of the intelligence services he had never come face-to-face with the results before and he was staggered by the damage he saw on the CIA Deputy Director, who had struggled painfully to his feet as he entered the room. Jim noted the shock and smiled wryly as he extended his hand.

"Don't worry, it looks more spectacular than it is. Jim Coaver. Pleased to meet you, Home Secretary."

They shook hands, carefully, before Towers finally breathed out and said,

"Jesus fucking Christ, I had no idea. You'd better fill me in."

"Take a seat and I will."

The American hobbled back to his seat and carefully sat down while the politician dumped himself in his chair, still stunned. Coaver didn't give him much time to indulge in his shock, though, he and Brontee rapidly running through a full outline of the political background of RussiaFirst and what they believed their current plans were. Towers listened, sobered, his brain ticking over with the implications for the partnership and trying to assess what might happen next. If the CIA were right then it looked like the Russians would stop at nothing to achieve their aim, including mass death and destruction. It sent a chill down his spine as he realised how well they had all been played and he was just wondering what the intent of this afternoon was when Jim mentioned exactly that.

"Now, this bombing." The American fixed him with an intense, hazel-green stare from his battered face. "According to our guests, it is designed to be an assassination – you are not meant to survive – and it is set up so that it will look like the Russian government are behind it. The materials are Russian military and the back-story established by the proponents provides a direct link back to the Russian special services. We would work it out with time but they're relying on the outrage generated to destroy both the partnership and the Russian government's standing in Western countries in the meantime. It appears that RussiaFirst are getting frustrated that their plans haven't been working so far and have decided to up the ante by taking you out."

The Home Secretary ran a hand through his hair, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Jim, watching, saw the sheen of sweat break out on his forehead and thought he had better deflect what he suspected was an incipient panic attack.

"The van is on its way from where our team has been doctoring it. The explosion will mostly be smoke and noise now, with little danger to either you or your chauffeur, but there are a couple of things you need to know to protect yourselves." That got the other man's attention. For all he was a few years younger than Jim, Towers was feeling, and looking, considerably older. At those words, his blue eyes snapped up to meet the American's as he focussed on every word that was said. "The van will come out from behind you and force you to a stop. Tell your chauffeur that it is imperative he stop at least a full car length away from the van and, under no circumstances, are either of you to open any doors or windows. That way no residual blast energy or possible shrapnel will be able to injure you. The blast is designed to dissipate upwards but, please, do as we suggest to ensure you both stay safe."

Towers, lost for words for once, just nodded and swallowed, his eyes flicking from Coaver to the young blonde girl and back again. Glancing at his watch he realised the time to depart was upon them. Jim and Brontee, seeing the anxiety flash over his face, checked their own watches and also understood. Again not giving him time to panic they both stood up, forcing the English politician to do the same. Extending his hand again, the American said,

"Thank you for coming, Home Secretary. I know it's easy to say but please don't worry, you will be fine and by playing your part we will get these bastards before they do anything worse."

"No, thank you, Mr Coaver. Without your efforts we would be totally oblivious to any of this."

"Oh, Hal and his crew would have worked it out eventually."

"Would they? He seems to be distracted by something lately – something apart from the Enquiry although I've got no idea what."

Both Americans diplomatically remained silent; it wasn't their place to go filling the other man in with thirty year old gossip. All Jim said was,

"You will forgive me if I don't see you out. Brontee will escort you back down to your chauffeur. Remember to tell him what he needs to do."

Towers nodded.

"I will. Thank you again, Director."

With that he and Brontee were gone, leaving Coaver to slump behind his desk for a moment before reaching for the pain-killers in his drawer. He knew everything should go well but there was always the possibility of a stuff-up to derail their plans. However, there was nothing more that he could do for the moment; like Hal, he was just going to have to sit back and wait.

Harry wasn't quite sitting back and waiting. Part of the plan was a phone call from Ruth to him, telling him when she had the laptop so that Sasha knew he would be able to get it. To achieve that they would utilise the bug in the car so, once it had been confirmed by Calum that Ruth was inside the Embassy, he had headed down to the car park, picked up the car and was now tooling around the streets, heading vaguely in the direction of his home. If Sasha didn't pick up the laptop at the Embassy end the intention was to make it easy on him to get it at the other end, when Ruth delivered it to Harry's house. Turning into a leafy side-street to get away from the traffic, his phone rang.

Ruth had been out of the Embassy for about thirty seconds, Tom Defoe just emerging to follow her, when Tallulah spoke quietly in her ear.

"Sasha has just found your car, Miss Evershed. He's gotten in and is in the back seat."

A shaft of fear struck her heart but she forced it down and kept walking, reminding herself that Sasha knew nothing, whereas they knew everything, and that Tom was behind her and Tallulah, along with Sasha's un-named tail, ahead. It was time to make the call, give the young Russian a warning of her approach, so she got her phone out and hit the speed dial, continuing to walk along the mercifully mostly-empty street. When Harry answered she gave it a moment to register on Sasha's phone before saying succinctly,

"It's done."

His voice on the line was calm.

"You have it?"

"Yes. I don't know, Harry, I feel like I've been manipulated."

In his car, Harry did a double-take, staring at the phone in its hands-free cradle and wondering where that had come from.

"What?"

"I feel like you told me all those things, and they were good things to hear and brave things for you to admit and then you ask me to do this. Am I just another asset to you, Harry? Like Elena was?" Harry, listening in disbelief, heard her voice growing more distressed as she spoke. What on earth was this about? Presumably she was still pissed off at being manoeuvred into doing the pick-up and was probably nervous about what was about to happen– Her voice was going on. "Maybe what you feel for me is guilt. They look the same, you said so yourself."

Remembering their listener the penny belatedly dropped: she was still playing the game of infuriating Sasha. Dangerous but brave, considering she was walking straight towards him, and so typical of her. She was clearly getting herself in a tizz, though – he couldn't quite work out if she was acting or had forgotten herself for the moment – so he had better try to settle her nerves before she got to the car. Remaining within the bounds of the little game they were playing he said soothingly,

"Ruth, you're reading too much into this. I'm not exactly known for my tact." Speaking quietly, he added, "This is the man who proposed to you at a funeral, remember?"

On the street, his words were enough to get her back on track. She had almost forgotten, for a moment, what was really going on and had allowed her repressed terror out as anger but the truth of his comments and the tone in which they were delivered mollified her and made her feel a little happier. That he could joke about it, under these circumstances, suggested there might be some hope for them yet. She just had to remember to continue to do her part.

"Yeah, that's true. You do have the most awful timing. That is true." In his car the man rolled his eyes with a silent sigh of relief. On the street, the woman suddenly stopped. "Umm, should I bring it to the Grid?"

_Good. Back on track_.

"No. To my house."

Sasha, crouched in the back of Ruth's car, listened intently. He had made the right decision: it would be easier to lift the thing here than try to follow her to Harry's house and then have a longer trip back to the hotel.

"Your house?" the woman was saying. "No, no, it will be encrypted."

"Come on," he replied, warm, smooth, encouraging. "All those years at Cheltenham? You can read whatever there is to be read. Let's just keep it contained. Alright?"

He would force her to get into it before he left, the young Russian decided. One less thing for him to worry about. Harry was right: with her years at GCHQ, she shouldn't find it difficult to get into the machine so he would take it easy on her. He had been intending to knock her out, take the laptop and run but now he would just use the gun to frighten her into doing what he wanted…

"Alright," she was saying. "I'll see you there."

Hanging up, Ruth took another steadying breath and set off towards the corner of the street where she was parked, keen to get the next part over and done with. In the Embassy, D'wane and Calum had glanced at each other during the earlier part of the phone conversation, wondering what she was up to, but had put it aside as Tallulah said quietly,

"She is in sight."

This is where they would find out whether this part of their plans would work or not and both young men sharpened their focus on the screens in front of them. The CCTV feed was both patchy and grainy but they could just see Ruth's car in the corner of one of the feeds while she herself was visible rounding the corner of the street on another one. They were so intent that they didn't hear Jim enter the room behind them, both startled as he leaned on the backs of their chairs to peer at the screens. Wordlessly, D'wane stood up and offered the older man his seat and a set of headphones, before dragging another seat over and resuming his position. In silence, the three men watched and listened.

Harry checked his watch as he drove into his driveway and realised both bombing and laptop intervention were imminent. Frustrated that there was nothing more he could do at this point and at his lack of comms, although he knew Erin and Dimitri were patched in _via _Calum, he walked inside and spent the next ten minutes pacing up and down between his kitchen and sitting room, waiting for a call.

In his car, Towers and his chauffeur were on their way to their appointment with the Prime Minister. Their stress levels were climbing, blood pressure and heart rate both on the way up, but both were still under control, trying to convince themselves that the CIA's reassurances were reliable. And only just succeeding.

As she turned the corner, Ruth was seized by a sudden desire to get the rest of the operation over. Her excitement having turned to dread, she picked up speed and almost jogged the rest of the way to the car, pressing the key on the remote as she passed the scaffolding-covered building. _Might as well give the little twerp some warning_, she thought as the car beeped at her. Resolutely not looking into the back seat, despite knowing what was there, she dropped her bag on the passenger's seat, settled in her own, closed the door and popped the key into its slot. Nothing from the back seat. Nerves screaming, she took the laptop out of her bag, removed it from the silver shielding that it was in (Calum's idea, to make it look as though she might have actually sneaked it out), propped it up against the steering wheel and opened the lid. That finally got a reaction. Reaching over from the back seat, Sasha pressed his right hand over her mouth and leaned his left hand, and the pistol it was holding, on her shoulder. The muffled, terrified,

"Oh no," she emitted wasn't acting.

In the van, Raul was closing in on Towers and his chauffeur. Tallulah had slipped a tracker to the chauffeur in passing and Silva was now watching its signal on his screen as he manoeuvred to come in from behind the car. It would only be a few minutes now before he could act.

Back at Ruth's car, she had tried two incorrect passwords to have a large 'Access Denied' message come up on the screen. Sasha had loosened his grip on her and instead was leaning on the back of her seat, right hand on the headrest and left digging the pistol into the side of her chest. After the first shock had subsided she had found herself remarkably calm. As she had approached the car she had glimpsed Tallulah Zanon in the distance, leaning against some railings and ostensibly on her mobile; aware that Tom Defoe was lurking somewhere back near the corner, although she couldn't see him, she felt more confident and had told Sasha, in no uncertain terms, to let her go. He had looked surprised but complied and then pressed the gun into her ribs and told her to get access to the computer. Not wanting to make it look too easy, she had appeared to think and entered the first password, to no avail; now the second one had failed. Still playing her role she murmured,

"No, it's not right," her voice betraying her remaining tension.

"You're stalling for time," the Russian's heavily accented voice breathed in her ear. "You have five more attempts before I kill you."

Glancing across at him and remembering their previous encounters she replied, confidently,

"You won't."

Fury flashed through his eyes as he leaned forward and lifted the gun.

"You don't know me and you don't know who I've killed." _Well, you're wrong there, _Ruth and every other listener thought. _We know exactly who you've killed. _"Now open these files."

Realising she may have been a little remiss in needling the young man, Ruth subsided and tapped another false password into the machine. 'Access Denied." Feigning disappointment and frustration she sagged back into her seat.

Towers was crawling through the traffic, having not got very far from the Embassy, and his stress levels were sky high, as were the chauffeur's. Still nothing had happened and it was getting to the point where neither man could bear it any longer. The politician was about to say something when Raul's van hurtled out of a side street and pushed its way past on their right before screeching to a halt in front of them, forcing them to a halt. Despite knowing what was happening sheer terror surged through both men as the chauffeur stomped on the brakes, stopping just short of the van. Towers emitted a brief, heart-felt,

"Bloody hell," as they slid to a stop and saw Raul, unidentifiable in a hoodie and sunglasses, leap from the van and run, with a swift backwards glance. Silva himself, taking in the scene with that one glance, realised with horror that the car was far too close to the van but there was nothing he could do so he kept running, breathing a heavy,

"They're too close," into his comms unit. In both Thames House and Grosvenor Square there was a collective drawing in of breaths but it was too late, the sound of an explosion drowned out anything else.

In the car, the chauffeur had forgotten his instructions and opened the door. Towers had shouted,

"_No!_" and made a grab for the young man's shoulder as he had undone his seat belt and opened the door just as the van exploded. As promised, most of the force went upwards but enough, accompanied by pieces of shrapnel, sprayed out and, with the car being too close, caused the windscreen and side windows to shatter, spraying glass through the vehicle, and slammed the door on the chauffeur's lower leg, breaking the bone in two places. Sound dimmed for the politician and he felt blood on the side of his face but he forced himself out, ignoring the dizziness, and moved to the front of the car to check on his driver.

In Ruth's car, she and Sasha heard the bomb go off as she entered a fourth incorrect password. Car alarms started screaming as her heart thumped and they both instinctively looked towards the sound of the explosion.

"That was a bomb," she exclaimed, unable to stop herself.

"No," the young man replied dismissively. Looking sideways at him she said,

"I know the sound."

He wasn't interested, being solely focussed on the laptop. Grinding the gun into her ribs he demanded,

"Keep working."

It was time to get rid of him. Tapping the correct password in, no sooner had the 'Access Granted' message popped up than Sasha leaned over and snatched the machine from her. She had to put up some sort of a fight so she said, feigning desperation,

"Sasha, please."

He ignored her, opening the door and getting out.

"Sasha, listen to me—" he slammed the door shut and ran back the way he had come, straight past Tallulah. Collapsing back into her seat, shaking from the adrenaline rush that had just kicked in, her phone flashed with a security alert. She could guess what that was about. Feeling drained, she took a deep breath and started the car.


	8. Chapter 8

**8. Harry's house. 18:15 hours.**

The lead story on the news was the car bomb attack on the Home Secretary. Harry had received the red flash as soon as the bomb went off and had called Erin to check on the success of the operation only to be told that it hadn't quite gone to plan and that both men were in hospital. Swearing volubly, he had headed straight back out to the car and had been driving in the direction of the hospital when Ruth had called. He had filled her in on what he knew and fended off her slightly accusatory questions by telling her he would meet her at the medical facility. It wasn't until he had hung up that he had realised that she hadn't said anything about Sasha. Assuming that had gone well, he was close to the hospital when Calum rang to confirm that Sasha had taken the bait without any harm coming to Ruth.

At the hospital Towers had blustered and complained about being half deaf but had eventually backed down under Harry's unbending stare and admitted that the misjudgement had been theirs and they had been far too close to the van, with the driver half out the door. Realising the politician was actually feeling both guilty and worried about the injuries to his employee, the older man had offered some reassurances and was discussing Towers' meeting with the CIA when Ruth arrived in a state of mild anxiety. Heaving a sigh of relief once she saw her employer sitting on the bunk, only slightly the worse for wear, and after being reassured in turn about the chauffeur, she had relaxed enough to bring them up to date on what had happened with the laptop. Towers had been horrified at the mention of the gun but the other two had dismissed it with the same comment (_he wouldn't have used it_) and little more was said before Charlotte Towers turned up to take her husband home. Ruth went to check on the driver and his family before he went into surgery for his broken leg and, having already thanked Ruth for carrying out her part so well and with no other reason to stay, Harry had headed for his car and home, immensely relieved that both parts of the plan had gone off relatively well.

No sooner had he walked back in his front door than the phone rang again. Dimitri this time, reporting on some information that had just come through from the FSB. It seemed there had been a phone call between Levrov and Zykov, briefly discussing how the plan in London had gone awry again and that they were awaiting Gavrik's update on the situation. Nothing particular was mentioned and neither Gavrik was specifically named but, as the bombing had not made it onto the broadcast media in Moscow at the time of the call and with what they already knew about the three families, Kuzin had thought it worth passing on. Surprised again by the Russian co-operation, Harry had thanked Dimitri and hung up to ponder the information. _Another nail in Elena's coffin_. It was oddly satisfying to know that their noose was tightening around her elegant, slender neck…

Loosening his tie, he headed into the sitting room and turned the television on, flicking across a few of the news channels to see what was being reported. It was all as required – attack on the Home Secretary, some injuries but no deaths, no-one claiming responsibility so far – and he was considering the calming influence of a glass of Ardbeg when his doorbell rang.

_Who the hell was that? _He was in the habit of receiving very few visitors when he was home – his children (rarely), Malcolm and a couple of old army buddies were about it – and he wasn't expecting anyone tonight. Turning the television off he went back to the front door and opened it, not knowing who to expect. Had anyone asked him, of all the people on the planet he would never have named the person who was standing there, elegant in a beautifully tailored charcoal suit, blue shirt and red-and-blue tie with thin white stripes. Colonel Ilya Andreivitch Gavrik.

Maintaining a poker face over his surprise, Harry stared at his old Nemesis and Nemesis stared back until he broke into an uncharacteristically self-deprecating smile and held up a bottle of vodka.

"I come in peace." Lowering the bottle he added, "But I am, of course, prepared for war, should you prefer it." Another smile accompanied the words but the Englishman knew perfectly well that his visitor was quite capable of going either way. Flabbergasted by the visit and both curious about and dreading what the man's appearance might herald, he rolled his eyes, sighed and stood aside to let the other in, leading him through into the sitting room.

Like his wife before him at the safe house, Ilya was unabashed about looking around him and assessing his surroundings. What he saw was an elegant Georgian room in neutral tones of cream, linen curtains on large windows which let in the golden evening light and showed the soothing green of the front garden and the park in the centre of the square. A lamp was on in one corner, throwing warm light up the wall, and the furnishings were a comfortable mix of leather and timber. Completely different to the opulence of his own home, Gavrik was nonetheless impressed by the quality of the furnishings and the modern art that was scattered on walls and bookcases but he wasn't about to admit it, saying instead,

"We have houses like this in Russia. Old soldiers of the Cold War live in them." Harry interrupted his musings momentarily by slapping an empty glass into his hand before moving back to the side table to finally pour himself that shot of whiskey, Ilya continuing on without missing a beat. "They are smaller than this—" he made a point of looking around again, taking in the high ceilings and the bookcases stuffed with obviously well-thumbed volumes "–and yet still too big." He made himself comfortable and continued to examine the contents of the room, noting with interest the ceramics and glassware on display. For some reason he hadn't expected Harry to have such eclectic taste in art. Or to have any taste in art, come to that.

The man himself, standing by the window and absently watching people passing in the street, again echoing his movements of earlier in the day and for the same reason, responded drily,

"It's very good of you just to come all this way to give me tips on home décor, Ilya."

He really had absolutely no idea what this was likely to be about, although it looked like it was just going to be a session of gloating by Ilya over his perceived superiority. One of his weak points had always been that sense of his own greatness – it was at least part of why it had been so delicious to have turned Elena. Until today, when the truth had finally come out and he had realised that they had all been played for fools by the woman and her cronies. Something Ilya presumably still knew nothing about. Or maybe he was about to find out differently…

Behind him, Ilya poured himself a vodka and glanced around at the photos on display on the wall and in frames on bookcases and side-tables. Family, by the looks of them: his children at various ages, including what looked like a recent one of his daughter; another faded colour one of two bare-chested young men skylarking at the beach, one of whom was clearly Harry (despite the wild long hair and side-burns that set it very firmly around 1972) and the other who was a younger replica (_the brother, perhaps?_), old black and white ones that were probably his parents and, on the wall in an oval frame, a large monochrome that was even older and was clearly his grandparents: the resemblance between the man in front of him and the woman in the photo was impossible to miss.

At Harry's flippant words the Russian's face hardened and he looked up.

"I say it so you'll understand." He gestured around the room. "I do not live in a house like this. I have a wife and a son." _Yes, a psychopathic terrorist and a murderer respectively_ was the thought but the words elicited no physical reaction from Harry so he continued on. "I have a tortoise in the garden, if you can believe that." Leaning back in the seat, feeling self-satisfied, he noted that the other man was now staring down into his whiskey glass, although his face was still unreadable. It was irritating, but not surprising. Arriving at his hotel twenty minutes ago to find no-one home and with the scent of a major international success in his nostrils, he had decided to drop in on his old opposite number, just to rub that success in a little. He knew their lives had followed vastly different tracks since Germany in the 1980's but the Englishman's words at the Reception, when they had first met again, had rankled more than he admitted so he couldn't resist the temptation to point out just how far he had come in comparison to the other man and to see if he could goad him to some sort of reaction. "We have friends and relatives. It is a place full of life."

_In contrast to this one_, was the implication that Harry read as he continued to impassively stare out the window. _Full of old photos and, for the past couple of years, devoid even of the warmth of a certain small dog and two beloved cats. Well, that might be the case now, but if they could pull off this plan then maybe there was a chance that would change…_ He wondered if Ilya knew anything of his non-relationship with Ruth. That woman's words earlier, in the car, suggested that the subject had at least come up between her and Elena at some point but would Elena have passed it on? Probably not, unless she could see a reason for using it to advance her cause. At this point she would be more interested in preserving her escape route, although he wouldn't put it past her to have planted the idea for the little scene they were playing out now in Ilya's mind, as she had presumably done to get him to insist on Harry's presence at the talks in the first place. The Russian was still talking, that mellifluous, deep voice creating a slightly echoing sibilance around the room.

"It is a miracle for anyone to find love, Harry, and especially people like us." _So now you're going to lecture me on the finer points of successful relationships?_ Harry thought, slightly incredulous. _Christ, Ilya, if only you realised you know less about that than even I do…_ Ilya shook his head in some sort of sorrow. "You cannot find the same solace in ideology. You have to take a hold of love when you find it," he leaned forward, smiling superciliously, "however imperfect, whatever the compromise. Whatever the cost." That comment stilled the Englishman's thoughts. _Is he insinuating what I think he is? Surely not. Maybe he does know about R-. _"So, whilst I still work for Russia, I no longer have any dreams for her." He sat back again, relaxing as he pontificated on his new internationalism. _Your wife does_. "Nor any enmity towards the West. We are, all of us, faded empires. Whether we sign this treaty or not is of no personal interest. Me? I have a tortoise in the garden." Harry could see him out of the corner of his eye as the man leaned forward again and smiled. "You know what's funny? He looks a lot like you."

_That was rich, coming from someone who was looking more and more reptilian with every passing year. If I'm a tortoise, Ilya, you're a bloody iguana, sitting up on your bleak basalt outcrop, sunning yourself and totally unaware of the tsunami that's about to engulf you._ This was one of the most bizarre conversations he had had for a long time and he was still trying to work out exactly what the point of it was. Ilya was feeling superior, full of his own personal and public success, and was displaying his magnanimity towards his old political and personal enemies, but he still wasn't above personal sniping. Harry had had enough of the rambling and turned to see the Russian take a swig of his vodka. Time to goad him to get on with it, whatever 'it' was. Taking a couple of steps away from the window and towards his guest he responded with a cutting,

"Sounds idyllic until you consider all the people you've executed to get there," as he sat opposite. Ilya was ready for it.

"And of course you've never killed anyone, Harry." _No-one I didn't have to and only in my job and on behalf of the State, not for my own advancement._ "The difference is, I changed my life." Harry took a dram of his whiskey and stared steadily at Ilya over the top of the glass. _No, Ilya, the difference is that you were doing it for yourself. _"It gets so much easier to kill as we rise." _Speak for yourself, _the younger man thought. _I never found it easy and it's got harder and harder with every passing year. _"All we have to do is pick up the phone. And I hate that. I want the gun to be in my hand, not some boy's I have ordered, sitting behind a desk. Being God. That way lies a black soul. A cold heart." They were staring at each other like a pair of snakes now, neither daring to blink. Harry might have agreed with Ilya about preferring to do his own dirty business – that was a trait he, Jim and Ilya had always shared – but he couldn't believe the screaming hypocrisy of what he was hearing. Ilya's history with the KGB left both his and Jim's in the shade as far as brutality and the piles of dead were concerned and the very squeaky cleanliness of his stellar career as an oligarch and politician suggested that he had, indeed handed over the dirty work to others, he had just done a superb job of convincing himself otherwise. He was the one still playing God, in his own way. Although they all paled into insignificance compared to Elena and Levrov. "I didn't want to be you," the Russian finished, making it clear he despised Harry and everything he stood for. Well, that was hardly news…

Time was getting on and he had better things to do than pander to the ego of the former Colonel Gavrik so he allowed an uneasy silence to stretch for a few moments before asking bluntly,

"What do you want, Ilya?" He was starting to suspect that he knew but, when they came, the words were still a shock.

"I know Elena spied for you." _Shit! _"The KGB took her, less than two years after you fled from Berlin." _I never entirely fled from Berlin, Ilya, I just never returned under my own identity. I was still there long after __**you**__ had fled to Dresden._ "She was suspected of espionage. Interrogated." _Mmm, if that's what you call it, and by her childhood hero. _"I thought at first it was a mistake. I soon realised it was not. I felt betrayed, of course, but I couldn't bear the thought of losing her." _Yes, your Achilles Heel was well known, Ilya, and they played to it beautifully. Giving you enough of the truth so you swallowed the rest. _"I did everything I could, pleaded her innocence, even as I knew her guilt. And—" he glanced up towards the ceiling as though in thanks to the deity neither of them believed in "—miraculously, it worked. They let her go." Harry suddenly realised that the emotion in the other man's voice – distress, relief, almost fear – were real and that this may well have been the point of his little lecture on damaged love before. He loved Elena Platonovna so deeply that he would forgive her anything in order to keep her. _As indeed he had had to, being married to someone who could not feel anything even remotely similar, locked in her fantasy world as she was. _He had swallowed the test hook, line and sinker and passed with flying colours, as far as Levrov and Elena were concerned. No wonder they had developed such a sense of indestructibility that they thought they could take on even Vladimir Putin. "I never told her I was the one who secured her freedom."

_There wouldn't have been any point, Ilya, she wouldn't have thanked you in the way you would have wanted: you were only doing what she __**expected **__you to do. _Harry continued to stare at him, unblinking, suddenly realising that Gavrik really, genuinely, had no idea of what had been going on then and still didn't. Elena was his blind spot, and it was total. Calmly, he finally stated,

"So, all this time, you knew."

"That you had turned her. That she had spied for you. That she had loved you." _Well, that confirmed Jim's theory that Ilya had to have known. Looks like he owed him a drink. _He wouldn't disabuse the older man of the notion that love was involved, though. It might still prove useful."And that it had ended. But many people live with betrayals. It may be the least they deserve. Look at you." _Presumably he had heard about Lucas, then. Christ, I wonder if he had been aware of Connie during her long career as a mole?_ "What do you have to show for all these years? I have a house and a wife and a son. And a tortoise in the garden."

He had no idea. None at all about the greatest betrayal of them all, that his wife had been manipulating him, and them all, from the very beginning and had been responsible, one way or the other, for the murders of Max Witt, Anatoly Arkanov, the would-be assassin Collison, John Grogan and, most importantly, Tariq Masood in the short time since they had arrived in the City. It was almost pitiful…

No one had been at the hotel when Sasha arrived back, for which he was grateful. He knew his mother would still be at the ballet theatre, doing some emergency coaching of the young understudy who was to be thrust on stage in a couple of hours in place of the unwell First Soloist who was supposed to be performing. Elena had been particularly renowned throughout the Soviet Union for her interpretation of Myrtha in _Giselle_ before the accident that had ended her dancing career and she still occasionally coached selected rising stars in that role and a couple of others, so had answered the call this afternoon with alacrity. Where his father was, Sasha had no idea. He would have left the interminable meeting on time – wasting time was one of Ilya's pet hates – and appeared to have returned briefly to their suite, judging by the presence of his briefcase, but had clearly gone out again. All well and good, the empty rooms gave Sasha the opportunity to examine what was on the laptop in privacy.

The files appeared to be organised primarily by name, so he had briefly checked what was under Harry's name and Ilya's, without delving too deeply. The failed extraction attempt was mentioned and, as usual, it brought back that previously unexplained snippet of a memory that he had from Berlin, of waiting in a park somewhere, dressed in his best school uniform, with his mother and a couple of bags, Elena becoming increasingly tense as he sat on a park bench, swinging his legs, for what felt like forever before she had told him to get up and they had returned home. Presumably that was the day of the extraction. He hadn't seen Harry again after that until they had arrived in London a few weeks ago.

His own file had contained a history of his life and career that was frighteningly accurate, in the quick glance that he had given it, but it was his mother's data set that he had now approached with extreme caution, half desperately wanting to know and half terrified of what he might find out. The front page of the file was in the standard format and confirmed that she was classed as a triple-A asset with two handlers, Harry Pearce for MI6 and Jim Coaver for the CIA. _The Americans! She hadn't mentioned much about them at all and yet she had been passing information to them, too. How __**could **__she? _Furious rage burst in his brain as his heart shattered. She had brought him up to despise the corruption of the West, particularly Britain and the US, and it had all been a lie, she had been working for them all along, was still working for them and had wanted to move them both permanently away from his father and Russia and over to the enemy. He couldn't contain the information, couldn't process it, didn't want to process it – as the rage and disgust and fear welled up among a return visit of that memory from the park, he focussed on a link to Elena's medical records at the bottom of the page and blindly clicked on it. And immediately wished he hadn't because the shock of what was revealed outweighed every other thing he had learned about his own and his mother's history over the past few weeks. It was a birth certificate. His birth certificate, from the hospital in East Berlin in which he had been born. And it named Harry Pearce as his father.

No, _no, __**NO.**_A white rage gripped him. He would not believe it. Could not. Buried deeply, did believe it. Why else would Elena have done what she did, including begging for an extraction, if not to join the man who had fathered her child? Whom she presumably loved—_**NO!**_Lifting the laptop, he smashed it against the corner of the antique desk in his room, again and again, until it came apart in his hands, pieces flying over the floor. In tears, his entire life as he knew it destroyed as surely as the machine, he could hardly breath for a moment as the room spun around him. He wanted to run, he wanted to stay and confront her, he wanted to kill someone, anyone… slowly his breathing began to return to normal as the fury turned from white hot to ice cold. No, he wouldn't do anything, yet. He would wait, consider the information and make his plans for revenge. No matter what she said, his mother would _not_ have done any of that of her own free will, someone else must be to blame.

There had been little left to say between the two men in Harry's sitting room: the owner wasn't interested in listening to any more and the visitor felt he had won the round, so when Harry's phone chirped he used the opportunity to show the Russian out, neither of them bothering with platitudes and the Englishman waiting until his visitor's car had slid silently away down the street before closing the door and leaning against it. That had been a very, very strange encounter. Up until now, Ilya had been nothing less than professional and they had begun to even enjoy the barbed banter that occurred during their meetings but this had just been _odd._ He wondered briefly if the man had been at the vodka before he arrived but dismissed the thought: like himself, Ilya tended to keep his binges to outside of work hours so it hadn't been that. Hauling himself away from the door and walking back to the sitting room, he decided that the man had probably been more drunk on power and success. In the eighties Harry had bested Ilya on most of the occasions they had come up against each other, and then of course there had been Elena… Now, he seemed to think that he had ultimately been the one to come out on top and obviously couldn't resist the temptation to do some gloating. But again, the poor bastard had absolutely no idea. As Harry himself had had no idea, until this morning.

Topping up his glass and sitting down again, he called Erin back. She and Dimitri had finished running through the data package that Kuzin had given them and the implications were frightening. She would take him through it in detail in the morning but, in essence, there was strong evidence, when you took into account what they knew now, that RussiaFirst had been involved in internal terrorist attacks and political assassinations aimed at the Government for much of the past decade. A number of assassinations had occurred at the same time that Elena had been visiting a particular suburb or city. The supposition was that, like here in London, she didn't do the dirty work herself, but instead was the organiser. _Taking lessons off Ilya. Or was it the other way around? _

He was immensely tired and just wanted some peace so he thanked his Section Head, asked her to continue to liaise with the Russians, including passing on information once he had cleared that with Jim, and hung up, throwing the phone on the side table, topping up his glass and collapsing back into his chair, staring at Ilya's bottle and glass without actually seeing them for a while before turning the television on again, just in time to catch a brief headline about an unknown American man being thrown out of a moving vehicle and later dying in hospital of his injuries. _Oh good, Erin had got one of the juniors to slip that press release out as well. _His peace lasted all of ten minutes before the accursed phone went off yet again. He was getting too old for all of this. What he had said to Ruth in the car, what felt like a century ago, had been the truth and after today he could hardly wait to walk out the door for the last time. For the first time in decades he seriously considered ignoring the bloody thing but the habit of a lifetime won and he picked it up, feeling slightly better when he was it was Jim Coaver calling.

"Jim. How are you?"

"The wheels have well and truly fallen off, my friend, so I though I would just touch base before the medics dope me up again and bundle me into my cot."

The American sounded even wearier than Harry felt but then he had better reason, having been physically half beaten to death. Harry, on the other hand, had merely been psychologically half beaten to death.

"We'll keep it short, then. Anything new from your end?"

In the Embassy's comprehensive medical suite Coaver leaned back against his pillow and closed his eyes, letting his old friend's quiet tones wash over him. He was aching in bones and muscles he hadn't known he had, had a crashing headache again and one of the cuts on his forehead had opened up while he was in the shower and was still weeping so he was glad the Englishman intuitively understood the need for brevity.

"Nothing you don't already know. Raul apologises for the cock-up this afternoon. He thought he had left enough room. He clearly hasn't been having a good day, after this morning!"

"It's okay, Jim. The Home Secretary admits their reactions weren't quick enough and he tried to stop the man opening the door but he was too late. Added a bit of authenticity for the news broadcasts, anyway." Jim laughed weakly at that. Typical Harry, always managing to find something facetious to say, no matter what the circumstances. "You're dead, too, by the way. At least according to the news."

"Great. Matches how I feel."

There was silence from the other end until the soft voice asked again, genuinely concerned,

"Are you really sure you're okay? That was one hell of an impact you took."

"Mmm, and they had used me as a punching bag in the van for a few minutes, too." He heard Harry's curse but interrupted him to add, "which they are now getting returned, ten-fold, and both physically and psychologically. Honestly, Hal, don't worry. I've got mild concussion, a few cracked ribs, my knee will probably never be the same and there's some internal bruising but we've both had worse. I'll be fine. We'll go out for a drink when all this is over and I'll prove it to you!"

"You're on." Harry suspected the truth was still being a little glossed over but wouldn't push Jim on it. There was plenty of time for that.

"How about your end?"

"A little. From the FSB, surprisingly." He summarised Erin's summary and heard a soft whistle from the other end of the phone.

"Dear God, we really had no idea, did we. What a pair of schmucks we were in 1980. I thought I had her pegged but hell, they must have seen us coming from streets away."

"We're not the only schmucks with no idea. I've just had an unexpected visitor and one of the strangest conversations I've ever had in my life. With Ilya Gavrik."

That perked Coaver's energy levels up a little and he listened to the details with growing incredulity.

"Old Ilya is still big-noting himself, huh? He always was full of himself."

"Yes but I can guarantee now that he knows even less of his wife than we did. He was quite genuine in what he was saying. He has no idea at all, or he's in permanent denial. The first drink we have is going to be on me, by the way: you were absolutely right about him knowing all along about the honey-trap."

"Well, maybe, my friend, but I bet he never knew about the story she spun you about Sasha. I'd like to see his reaction if he ever finds out about that."

"It wouldn't be pretty." Harry was also sitting back in his chair, eyes half shut, lubricating his throat with the occasional sip of Ardbeg and slowly relaxing. It was good to have an old friend around again and he would make damned sure that he did whatever was required to mend the damage his recent suspicions had inflicted on the relationship. As though reading his mind, the American said, so softly he could barely hear it,

"Harry, I would never have done it, you know." A tired cough accompanied the words. The change of tack caught the Englishman off-guard and he asked, puzzled,

"What?"

"In Berlin. I would never have shot you, you know that, don't you?"

Coaver was clearly feeling as fragile and grateful for the survival of their friendship as Harry was and there was a sudden upwelling of unexpected emotion.

"I know that, Jim." It was probably time he admitted the truth about that moment. "I took the opportunity you offered to avoid following through because I'd realised how pointless, stupid and dangerous it was. I'm not proud of myself but that's how it was. I was glad you pulled that gun on me."

"Well, I believe you can probably forgive yourself for it. It was the right decision, Hal."

"Obviously. Something else I owe you a drink for."

"Sounds like it's going to be one hell of a night!"

"We'll have earned it, Jim, several times over."

Indistinct voices filtered through from the other end of the line and then Jim, muffled and annoyed, voice of iron, asking the disembodied ones to wait another couple of minutes. Harry took another appreciative sip of the _uisge beatha_ and let its warm glow suffuse through him until Jim came back on the line.

"Sorry, Hal, the medics want to call time so I'll have to go soon. One thing, though: how long do you think we should let this go on?"

It was a question he had been considering himself so he delivered his answer quickly and bluntly.

"As short as possible. In fact, I think we should turn up the pressure on Elena and RussiaFirst. Force them into action."

There was silence at the other end as Jim allowed a smile to twitch his lips. He'd thought that would be the response.

"Any ideas on that one?"

"Perhaps." He could just about see Harry staring into the swirling liquid that was undoubtedly in the crystal glass in his hand as the other man answered slowly. "D'wane Brandon said something earlier on that we might be able to use." _Had he, now? _These youngsters were constantly surprising him. "I asked him what would have happened had you died under those circumstances. He said that the CIA would have come after me." Coaver sighed. It was sad but true. His organisation was big on vengeance and didn't always stop to ask questions before they shot someone…

"Unfortunately, he was right."

"Good. I think we can use that."

That was almost double-take material.

"How so?"

"I suddenly disappear into CIA custody. We use that as an excuse to bring forward the signing of the agreement to tomorrow. That should force their hand."

Typical Hal. Choose the dangerous path.

"That's risky."

"Maybe. But it should precipitate a crisis and we will be waiting for it. We have our people on the ground here and the FSB here and in Moscow so we should be able to contain the fall-out."

He'd forgotten about Kuzin. Like Harry, it went against the grain for Jim to consider working with the old enemy but at the moment beggars couldn't be choosers. He was getting tired again and the doctors were hovering on the other side of the doorway.

"So what do you want us to do?"

"Whatever it is that you would have done."

"Knowing my bosses they would have been on Towers' back to have you extradited back to Langley."

"Better there than Guantanamo Bay!"

The exasperated sigh that came back down the line made Harry smile in turn.

"Guantanamo is nothing to do with us, Hal!"

"If you say so," was the insouciant response, which incurred a muttered,

"Keep that up and I'll send you there to find out for yourself…"

Grins flashed at both ends.

"Can you get someone to set it up at your end? I'll bring Towers up to speed and get Erin to tip off the Russians through Kuzin."

"I'll get Brontee onto it. And then we wait, I suppose?"

"You suppose correctly." Silence fell again until Harry said, gently, "Go to bed, Jim. We may need you tomorrow so you will need your beauty sleep."

A dry laugh came from the other end.

"You'd better give me at least a month instead of a night, then! Good luck with the Home Secretary."

"He's still a might peeved that RussiaFirst tried to assassinate him. He won't argue."

He didn't. In fact, William Towers seemed to relish the opportunity to perform another small role in the play that was designed to bring down the renegade political extremists who had wanted to kill him for their own gain. Erin was still on the Grid when Harry rang her and had, in fact, just got off the phone to Kuzin. He had called with the information that Moscow had intercepted an email to Levrov giving more details of the day's events and reporting that Ilescu, Morales and Milic had completely vanished, leaving the writer a little unsettled. Incredibly, the email had come directly from Elena Gavrik. It had been encrypted but the encryption was rather old-fashioned and hadn't taken much to break.

Harry had considered that as he had headed towards his kitchen. It wasn't idiocy on Elena's part, he knew that now. It wasn't stupidity, either. It was, he decided, sheer, unadulterated arrogance combined with the total indifference that she felt towards anyone except herself. They had got away with their deadly little games for so long that they were over-confident and getting sloppy. Well, that was all to the good. It should make the end game so much easier.


	9. Chapter 9

**9. Ruth's flat. 19:30 hours.**

It had taken Ruth much longer than she had thought it would to get away from the driver's anxious family. He himself, groggy on pain-killers and about to go into surgery, had tried to apologise for his slow reactions and unthinking behaviour that had put he and Towers in danger but she had assured him that everything was fine and he needed to concentrate on getting well. Then the man's wife and three young children arrived and chaos descended until the medical staff had bundled him off to surgery, after which the young mother – she appeared to be well under 30, leaving Ruth feeling suddenly, unaccountably old – had collapsed in a quivering mess, causing the children to panic in turn. That had needed all of the older woman's people skills to bring back under control.

Now it was gone seven o'clock and she was finally dragging herself up the stairs to her small flat. It was the same one she had moved into after she had returned from Cyprus and George had – died. The same one she had briefly shared with Beth Bailey. And it was still as impersonal as it had been the day she had arrived. Supplied fully furnished by her employer it was neat and comfortable enough but had never felt like home and, for some reason, she had never tried to make it home, either. She had bought little with her on her return and everything that had been sent to her by George's family after their house had been sold had remained either in storage or been dispensed with. This evening, looking around as she dropped her bag in the tiny entry, kicked her shoes off and headed, like Harry, for the kitchen, she saw its impersonal presentation, felt its emptiness – and smiled to herself, thinking of an almost-as-tiny but full of character cottage almost within sight of the sea in Suffolk. The cottage she had put an offer on last weekend. The cottage that would be perfect to share with someone very particular.

Opening the fridge, she pulled out the remains of a bottle of _pinot gris, _poured the contents into a glass and flopped onto one of the seats at the dining table while she considered the day. First, still feeling slightly dislocated in her new job and surroundings, there had been that sinking feeling of realising Harry was acting out at least part of whatever it was that he hadn't wanted her involved in. And then had come the discovery of exactly what it was. She re-lived the phone call to him and cringed at what she had said, particularly in relation to Elena Gavrik, and how it had probably come across to him. His former subordinate now trying to pull rank on him and using a personal accusation to do it. No wonder he had been so short with her.

She buried her face in her hands for a moment, wondering where it had all gone wrong, how she had ended up so bitter and twisted on a personal level that it had affected her work, how she had been unable to disengage her feelings and remain professional. It all went back to Cyprus, of course, and she ticked off the causes in her mind:

the anger at the events that had landed her there, in a new identity and new life, in the first place;

the desperation and loneliness that had seen her grab the first half-way decent man who had come along and take the opportunity he had offered to try to resurrect some facsimile of the happy family she had enjoyed as a child, complete with the man sharing the same profession as her father;

the creeping sense of guilt that she had begun to feel as the man and boy got more serious about her than she was about them and she realised she was going to have increasing difficulty in lying to them, for the rest of her life, about her past and that it might be better for everyone if she slipped away before it was too late;

and then the _denouement, _of course. All three ripped out of their Mediterranean idyll when the ink was barely dry on the ownership of their cottage, angry and on the run, two of the trio with absolutely no idea of what was happening; kidnapped, held at gun-point, the shock of seeing Harry again, bound and beaten, her terrified babbling of what she knew and its failure to save George's life, the momentary terror when Lucas and Ros had come bursting in behind a hail of bullets, Nico's mix of fear and loathing towards her before he, now an orphan, had been shipped back to the remains of his family, and her massive, soul-destroying guilt over the whole thing. Dragging them in, in the first place, as she floundered about, looking for an external life-raft for her own ruined life; then keeping them there because she didn't have the nerve to do the right thing, or to come to terms with the necessity of a permanent lie; finally dragging them to their destruction while she survived.

She lifted her face and stared at her glass as she did something she rarely allowed herself: remember those days in Cyprus. George had been a good man and he had loved her. He was funny and kind and thoughtful , not much older than she was and equally lonely so, thinking she would never return to London, she had been flattered by his attention and allowed herself to fall into the relationship for all that she liked him more than loved him. They had been comfortable and happy enough, until he started to get serious and she started to get guilty because of the permanent lie about her history and her perception that it was unfair of her to not match his intensity of feeling. She had actually been wondering what, if anything, to do about it all that day, while setting out lunch in the hot, dappled, lemon-scented sunlight and with Nico splashing about in the pool, when Mani's crew had arrived and made the decision for her.

And then there was Harry. In her grief and guilt, she had, without admitting it, blamed him for the end of her previous life and compounded it by blaming him for the even earlier act of keeping her on when her duplicity for GCHQ had been discovered (she shook her head: it had been Tom Quinn's decision, she later found out. Harry had left the decision on what to do with her to him) followed by blaming him for telling her about the uranium in the first place and then, sensibly, moving it again once she was gone to her new life; and the final, completely unfair, blame, the one she had put on him since the events of her return, the one that made him solely responsible for what had happened that day as well as for making her love him all those years ago and for making her realise she still loved him, regardless; the one that had seen her punish him, relentlessly, for her own culpability and guilt.

Tears slid down her cheeks, silently, helplessly, for all of it. All the guilt, all the anger, all the missed and mis-communication, all the pain, of the past half-decade. And for how it had all come roaring back in full force a few weeks ago with the appearance of Clan Gavrik. After the mess that was the unmasking of John Bateman and Albany and the shock it had engendered, she had made a conscious decision to put the past where it belonged, accept responsibility for what was hers and make a genuine attempt to move forward into a worthwhile future. One that included her erstwhile boss, if he would forgive her. Miraculously, he had seemed inclined to and, during the course of his euphemistically named 'gardening leave', they had begun to talk, properly, working through their self-imposed walls and cautiously feeling their way to a new understanding. For a few weeks it had been wonderful, full of promise. Then Ilya Gavrik had turned up, with his unpleasant family, the past had reared its ugly head again…and she had found it easier to return to the old thought patterns of anger and blame. Returning to the personal instead of using their tentative new openness and her much-vaunted analytical skills to consider other alternatives, including the one where what he was saying might actually be true. It had been a honey-trap gone wrong and his prickly response to her reaction to the news about Sasha should have told her that any genuine love he felt had been towards the boy he thought was his, not the woman who was the mother.

Well, after this afternoon, she understood the miscalculation she had made and had seen the truth in both the devastation on his face when he had been presented with reality and then the icy, controlled fury as he had been released of any obligation towards either Elena or Sasha: she could almost hear it when his mind had changed gear. She had seen, and felt shamed. Still felt ashamed. Wiping the tears from her face, she swallowed a slug of the wine and forced herself to move on, considering the rest of the day's events.

She had still been infuriated with him at the start of the meeting with the Americans. By the end, she was chastened so when the opportunity arose later to take part in the fishing expedition to hook Sasha she had been happy to take it, at least in part as reparation for her recent reactions. Her initial angry reaction to that had been genuine and was out of her mouth before she had a chance to think so she was then profoundly glad that Towers had intervened and given her an opportunity to back-pedal before she had completely destroyed her own resolution. She had maintained her reluctance as a show for both men because she didn't want the truth to come out too quickly: that she was already missing the adrenaline rush of the Grid and had felt largely side-lined during the meeting at Grosvenor Square, something she found she didn't like. Once she had squashed her habitual reaction and 'allowed' herself to be talked into it, the sense of excitement had started to build. She was getting one last chance to go out and be a field spook and she was determined to make it a success.

It had been strange, working inside the CIA, if only momentarily, but then that was over and she was approaching the car, terror building after Tallulah's murmured information on Sasha's whereabouts. It had been funny, though: once Sasha had sprung his attack she had calmed down and actually enjoyed taking control and achieving the desired outcome safely and efficiently. The sound of the bomb had rattled her again – she hadn't expected it to be close enough to hear – but at least it had given her the chance to get rid of Gavrik Junior. She had just been congratulating herself when the message came through and had initially barely glanced at it before the words 'injured' and 'hospital' had registered, followed almost instantly by Calum's whisper in her ear that the bombing hadn't quite gone to plan.

That had set off another adrenaline rush as she made for the hospital, ringing Harry on the way and using a tone that she realised later was a little peremptory to question him about what had gone wrong. They hadn't had any opportunity to talk at the hospital and he had been long gone by the time she had finished with the distraught young wife and children so now here she was, sitting alone in her kitchen and wondering what was going to happen next. She would have liked to have talked to Harry and considered, briefly, ringing him but didn't: she hoped he had understood that most of her comments during the afternoon had been aimed at Sasha but, with their history, didn't want to guarantee it. Lifting her glass she realised it was empty so splashed the last little bit of wine into it and sighed, wondering what he was doing right now. Probably the same as her but out of a differently shaped bottle. For a moment she allowed herself to indulge in wondering what it would be like if they were winding down together, in that light, sunny little room looking out over an overgrown garden in a small cottage near the sea with a front door featuring peeling green paint. And the wondering was good. So good that she knew she had to make it come true and understood that it was within her power. He had said as much, on that park bench, but she, mis-hearing and mis-interpreting as usual, had ignored it, choosing to focus on working out what he _might _have meant instead of accepting it for the blunt statement that it undoubtedly was. And he had followed it up this afternoon with that gentle joke against himself.

There was still hope, then, especially after the little retirement bombshell he had dropped in the car earlier: that comment had most definitely _not _been for Sasha's benefit. It had been for hers. That brought her back to the cottage, which she was expecting to hear back about any day. The first half-opportunity that came up, she was going to do her damnedest to bring the two together. Looked at dispassionately, after everything that had been thrown at him during his life, it was a wonder the man was still standing at all, let alone still sane. She would pile no more angst on him, on _them_; instead, she would build them a new future, a peaceful, happier future, together.


	10. Chapter 10

**10. Harry's house. 20:30 hours.**

He had managed to avoid thinking about things for the better part of an hour while he had rattled around in the kitchen putting together a quick batch of _pho_. A memento of his extended deployment in Thailand in 1993 during the nine months he had been seconded to G Section chasing drug smugglers, he had developed such a taste for the spicy, beefy noodle soup that he had learned how to cook it from the mother of one of his local colleagues in Chiang Mai and it had been a staple of his diet ever since. On this evening the preparation of all the fresh ingredients had given him something else to think about before he settled down to enjoy his concoction, washed down with a beer. Then the cleaning up, accompanied by another beer, had given him a bit more time avoid thinking. Now he was flopped in his favourite seat in front of the television, finishing off the remains of the second beer, while some peroxide blonde bimbo who looked about 20 under her thickly-plastered make-up and was dressed in something more suited to a Soho nightclub than the TV news was wittering on with the headlines and, inevitably, mentioned the assassination attempt on the Home Secretary.

Muting the blonde's mildly irritating _faux_-upper class honking, Harry let his mind go back to where it wanted to be. Like a tongue that couldn't help probing a sore tooth, his brain couldn't leave the Gavrik family alone. The revelations about Elena and Sasha, along with Ilya's strange visit, didn't give him much choice. It was going to take a long time to stop the habit of wondering about Sasha: on the child's birthday, at Christmas, on Father's Day, at random other times, Aleksandr Illych had been the ghost in the room, unknown, unreachable, unacknowledged but never forgotten. And now, suddenly, there was no longer any point in remembering.

He still remembered his reaction when Elena had told him about the baby – he hadn't quite believed it but, for his own bruised emotional reasons had _wanted _to – and as a result had spent three decades in regret and self-recrimination. Expertly hidden from everyone (except Jane: she had known something was eating him, deep down, but as far as he knew had never found out exactly what it was), the existence of the child was nonetheless one of the things that defined him to himself and to have it all exposed as a lie had been devastating. And yet there had been that tiny little worm of doubt that had remained curled up in his memory until this day, when it emerged, fully fledged, into the light, doubt no longer but certainty instead. Along with it had been a form of relief. Relief that he had been right to not complete the extraction when Jim had presented him with the opportunity; relief that he had not had to endanger his real family by the presence of the believed family in England, even though he would have still had to abandon them as surely, for their own protection as well as everyone else's; relief that there was no longer anything to link him to Elena, the woman he had tried to convince himself that he loved for the sake of the child; relief that the whole compromising mess was, in fact, no compromising mess at all and that he no longer had to hold back. For anything.

He finished the last of the beer and dropped the empty bottle onto the side table next to the equally empty whiskey glass. He didn't know what had been on the laptop that had been directed at Sasha but he hoped that the fake birth certificate wasn't part of it. His observations of that young man had left him in no doubt that if Gavrik Junior saw that material, there would be a high risk of him completely losing it and turning rogue, and he wouldn't guarantee the outcome of that. The young man had already murdered his best friend: as a result, he wouldn't hesitate to act against anyone else.

A trait it sounded like he had got from his mother. How on earth had he and Jim _not _seen the truth of what was going on at the time? Youthful arrogance, inexperience, too much testosterone. All of the above. Plus they really hadn't been expecting it. They had been playing one of the oldest games in the book – the honey trap – while she had been playing one of the other ones – the double-bluff – and playing it superbly. The honey trap had gone much as expected: she hadn't given in to his charm at the first opportunity, it had taken a little longer than that and she hadn't completely come around to their side until he had presented her with that file containing the slightly twisted version of her parents' fate. He and Coaver had celebrated that little triumph, especially when she started feeding them the solid-gold information that had saved lives and allowed them to counter KGB operations. To realise the truth now – that Levrov, Zykov and Elena must have been celebrating their own triumph and probably unable to believe their luck at how easy it had been to fool both MI6 and the CIA – turned his stomach.

As did the realisation that she hadn't just been playing him. She had been playing with them all including, incredibly, her only child. That was something he would _never _get his head around: in his books, no matter what else you did, you did _not _use family to further your work games and you particularly did not involve your children. They were to be protected, not exposed, and it was anathema to him to even think any other way. Hence his desperation to extract Sasha when she had implied that they were in danger. That she had actually been willing to go through with the extraction at the time and was still using the boy over 25 years later to gain her own political ends beggared belief. Tallulah Zanon had mentioned something in passing during the meeting earlier today, describing Elena as a walking textbook example of a clinical psychopath and the more he thought about it, the more he realised she was right.

He reached for the whiskey again but then put it down. He would need a clear head in the morning if they were going to force the end-game to begin. He had no idea of what was going to happen but from what he had learned today it could easily go as far as staging an international incident, either implicating the Russian government or forcing Putin to act in such a way as to destroy himself in the eyes of his people or the rest of the world. Harry harboured no illusions on the subject of that other former KGB officer: he might have been Ilya's teacher's pet but the Englishman just saw him as yet another old-style Soviet dictator, if slightly more subtle in his use of information (his KGB training) rather than relying on the blunt instrument of the armed forces to maintain control. The only reason he would be so accommodating in going after RussiaFirst was because he couldn't suborn or destroy them any other way. He might be a dictator but, these days, in the instant glare of social media where your every action could be filmed and uploaded onto the internet in the blink of an eye, even dictators had to be careful what they got up to and how they got up to it.

It was all totally dispiriting, depressing, grubby. Gazing at the window he realised it was getting dark outside so hauled himself to his feet to go and close the curtains, reflecting on how everything he did these days seemed to be totally exhausting. For most of his career in both the army and the security services he had taken an almost unholy delight in the opportunities it had presented him, grabbing them and running with boundless energy. Bill's horrendous death had been the first event to make him slow down and take stock of the stakes they were playing with and what the ultimate cost could be. After that, the other losses had mounted slowly, allowing time to absorb them, but the last decade since 9/11 had seen an acceleration like no other he was aware of. The losses multiplied and became more and more personal while the 'causes' creating the losses, as nasty or nastier than he had ever known, proliferated like so much algae in a summer pond. With that had come a proportional decline in his enthusiasm and energy levels until now, between the revelation of John Bateman and the return of Elena Gavrik, he had finally reached the end of his tether. He had tried to get out before, of course, but had allowed Ruth to talk him out of it. Well, not this time. He had succeeded in moving her to somewhere safer, Erin looked like she might be capable of taking over permanently, despite his reservations about her tendency to stick to the rules and her vulnerability to being emotionally manipulated when children were involved and he knew he was only back, on sufferance, because of the partnership talks anyway so it seemed like fate was giving him a shove in the direction of leaving.

Closing the curtains, he picked up the empty bottle and glass and went back out towards the kitchen, wondering if there was any particular incident that had been the proverbial straw breaking this camel's back. Very possibly, it was the manner of Ruth's return. He had hoped – assumed – she was safe, wherever she was, and happy, and was getting on with his own life when it had all been blown apart, with devastating consequences for all of them but, most importantly, for a small Cypriot boy he would never know. That was probably it. Topped up by the manner of Jo's death and Ros' gradual decline afterwards, he had had increasing difficulty accepting the cost and the joy of the job, of winning small battles in this never-ending war, had evaporated, almost overnight.

Dumping the bottle to one side of the bin and rinsing out his glass, he realised he had taken the right decision. Catherine was due to marry Aron, her New Zealand born award-winning camera-man boyfriend, in a few months and was already talking children and Malcolm had been whispering in his ear for months about him retiring and joining the younger man in his new, highly confidential and already successful intelligence technology development and consultancy company so it looked like the stars were aligned for him to move to a new phase in his life. Whether Ruth had a part in that was unknowable at this stage but he wasn't going to bet on it, despite the little, tiny corner of his mind that was suggesting a move to civilian life might just be the catalyst they both needed.

Checking his watch, he realised it was getting on for nine o'clock and decided, for once, to hit the sack early. It was looking likely to be a long day again tomorrow. On the way up the stairs, his phone rang and he groaned, wondering if his plans had just been scuppered. Not recognising the number he answered cautiously, to hear Tallulah Zanon's liquid drawl on the other end.

"Sorry to interrupt you at this hour, Sir Harry, but Director Coaver is off-limits and I thought one of you should know. Veronica Duran has just been pulled in by our people on the other side of the Channel and will be back here in one of our guest suites by morning."

Well, well, one of those little victories. Timely extra leverage. If Jim was right about Duran, and the follow-up research some of the juniors had done this afternoon suggested he was, then Harry had no doubt that the woman would have no hesitation in giving them whatever they wanted in order to save her own skin. She had no allegiances and no morals so it shouldn't be too difficult, especially if it was Tallulah working on her.

"You will be talking to her when she arrives?"

"Most certainly, Sir. It will be my pleasure."

He had no doubt about that!

"Excellent news. Thank you for letting me know, Agent Zanon."

"Thank you, Sir Harry. I will follow up with you and the Director tomorrow."

They bid each other good night and the man tossed his phone onto his bedside table, sitting on his bed to remove his shoes while he considered the new development. With that news, and anything that Kuzin might come up with, he would definitely push to have the signing of the agreement brought forward to tomorrow. That should really make RussiaFirst jump and would get the whole thing over and done with within the next few days. And after that, retirement. Immediate and irreversible. Removing his tie and hanging it back in its place in his wardrobe, he considered the prospect of a civilian life as he headed for the _en-suite_ and a long, hot shower, and found it genuinely appealing, a siren-song towards something he had never known as an adult: normality. And he couldn't wait to get there.


	11. Chapter 11

**11. Following day. Thames River bank and American Embassy. 07:30 hours.**

The scrambled phone call had come from Brontee Sorenson at just after six, informing Harry that the staged hand-over was organised for 7.30am in the nicely public river front not far from Thames House. The Home Office had been informed, the Home Secretary would be there to play his part and the information had been passed onto Evgeny Kuzin to get to Sasha however he chose. After the hand-over Tom Defoe would bring him back to the US Embassy where he could catch up with Jim and they would await events.

Unsure of exactly how long he would be away, although he was planning on it only being twenty four hours, he attended to a few matters of household hygiene before leaving for Millbank, where he left his car and walked to the meeting point. Erin and Dimitri had been there when he arrived and confirmed that they had had word from Kuzin that the bait had been successfully delivered and the young man had just made an excuse to leave the office. Ilya and Elena were still at the hotel and there had been no further contact between her and anyone back in Moscow. He nodded, thanked them and set off for the meet, pondering what direction events might go next.

Arriving at the river he saw it was low tide and that Towers was waiting for him down on the sand, carefully positioned to avoid being overheard and with an extremely obvious coterie of CIA agents, including Tom Defoe and Raul Silva, forming a cordon on the bank itself. Sasha was nowhere in sight but he had no doubt that the boy was around somewhere. Ignoring the Americans (although catching Silva's eye in passing) he made his way to the water front to join the politician and the woman waiting with him. Ruth. What was she doing there?

Maintaining a serious expression Towers greeted Harry jovially enough and asked, without any further ado,

"So what do we do now, Harry? Make small-talk for the next ten minutes?"

"Not that long, Home Secretary. Just long enough to make it look as though you're giving me a pep-talk. Or a bollocking."

Remaining impassive the other man responded drily,

"Consider yourself bollocked then. I really would like to know exactly how we've ended up in this position but I don't entertain any hope that you will ever tell me so let's just hope it all goes well. Now we've made up this little charade what happens next?"

"We accelerate the action. Are the terms of the Russian Partnership in place?"

"Nearly."

"Then bring forward the signing of the agreement to today. Get it signed, sealed and delivered now, to give RussiaFirst no time to stage further attacks."

"Harry, are you sure about that? I've been looking into them and they play a dangerous game."

It was Ruth, sounding anxious. He finally glanced across at her and realised how tired she looked: she was almost as weary as she had ever appeared after pulling an all-nighter on the Grid. And she was genuinely worried, he could see it roiling behind her opalescent gaze.

"I'm sure and we know. That's the reason we can't delay the signing any longer." He looked back at Towers. "We dare not give them the time to escalate their plans into something we can't control."

Towers nodded almost imperceptibly and offered his hand.

"Very well." The shook and the politician turned to go. "Keep me updated."

"Home Secretary."

Ruth was every bit as tired as she looked. Unable to settle after picking at her dinner she had ended up going back to her laptop and trawling through the summary data provided by the CIA, followed by doing further searches of her own to confirm what was there, and had been quietly terrified by what she had seen. These people would stop at nothing to achieve their plans if even half of what the Americans had was true and, without knowing it, they had all been drawn into their deadly little game. Some of them – Harry, Jim, Max Witt – years ago, the rest, including herself, much more recently. That realisation had made her heart sink as she recognised how well Elena Gavrik had been playing her, manoeuvring her back into disbelieving everything Harry had said and towards helping to frame Jim Coaver, and almost getting him killed as a result. It had been the early hours of the morning by the time she shut the computer down and went to bed, where she had slept little, pursued by phantasms of guilt, worry and fear. Dropping off a little before dawn, her dreams had been just as unsettling and she had woken for the last time with an un-named terror gnawing at her guts. She had a bad feeling about today and now here was Harry, proposing to bring the terror forward.

Harry gazed down at her, seeing it all in her eyes, and smiled apologetically.

"Sorry you got roped in again. It won't be for much longer – I'll try to avoid dragging you in at all, I know how unhappy you are about it."

Her own smile in return was fleeting.

"It's okay. Now I know about RussiaFirst I'm happy to do my part to stop them." They continued to gaze at each other for a few moments, he wondering why she was really here, she increasingly flustered by the looming sense of doom about today that she had been unable to shake. He had a sense they were reaching their own personal end-game now as well; her next words seemed to confirm that she was thinking the same thing. "It's odd. I've put in an offer, on a house." She had no idea why she was telling him this, the words were out of her mouth before she had even considered it but maybe it was her subconscious trying to tell him about the future she wanted for them, so that in case whatever she dreaded did happen, at least he would know… "It's in Suffolk, on the coast. It's lovely but the thing is, I can't picture myself actually living there."

He was genuinely happy for her, that she was finally finding something outside of work to focus on and beginning to consider the same sort of normality that had been calling him last night but clearly she still needed some encouragement so he found himself taking her hands in his and replying, intently,

"Keep trying. If you manage to form a semblance of a normal life after everything it'll be your crowning achievement." If either of them did it would be a miracle but he was so glad that she finally seemed to be putting the past behind her and moving on. And if she could, so could he.

She hoped he understood the import of her words; clasping his fingers in hers she was about to say more when Tom Defoe arrived.

"We need to go, Sir Harry. Sasha Gavrik has been spotted watching so we've achieved our purpose."

"Thank you, Agent Defoe." Harry turned his attention back to Ruth. "Time to depart." Lifting her hands he kissed them both. "Hold on to that dream, Ruth. If you want it enough it will happen, even if you can't quite see it yet."

He let her go and turned away to follow the young American but her voice made him look back again for a moment.

"Harry. Be careful today."

He nodded, curtly, and disappeared through the trees with his escort. For some reason tears sprang to her eyes and she lifted her hand to wipe them away, fighting back the un-named dread that was threatening to overwhelm her. Telling herself it was an over-active imagination on a sleepless night after the day that had turned her view of the man on its head – or, perhaps, changed it to something more real – she wiped the rest of the tears away and, belatedly, made her way back to the car where Towers was waiting.

The waiting was painful for all involved but at least it didn't last long. By the time Ruth and Towers had returned to the Home Office and Harry had been openly escorted into the Embassy on Grosvenor Square it was getting on for eight. The politician began making phone calls almost straight away, using bluster, oily smoothness or ear-splitting fury as required to achieve the target while quietly amazing his Security Advisor with his acting ability, and culminated with a call to Minister Gavrik at a quarter past eight. Ilya had been surprised but not unhappy at the prospect of an early and successful end to negotiations and had agreed to the official signing being brought forward to late morning, setting off a torrent of official and unofficial scurrying. The venue had been organised long since and just required a final security sweep and stage setting while the official guests and press were scrambled to cover the event. Ruth informed Thames House and allowed Erin to pass the message on to the Embassy and Kuzin, letting loose more organised scrambling.

On the Grid, Erin despatched Calum to the venue to install a little extra monitoring equipment while Dimitri contacted the Russian section chief. In Jim's office, he and Harry had spent a quiet morning catching up and considering various action plans over coffee while assorted members of Coaver's team came and went with snippets of information. Harry had been glad to see his old friend obviously feeling better, even if he didn't look it, the night's rest having cleared Jim's head so he was now obviously firing on all cylinders again. Not long after Harry had arrived, Tallulah Zanon had emerged from the guest suites in the basement, where she had turned her attention to their newest occupant, Veronica Duran. She was providing information but Agent Zanon suspected she had more specifics that she was holding back and thought a quick visit from Jim might help loosen her tongue so the man had disappeared, slowly and stiffly but with a slightly devilish green gleam in his eye, leaving Harry to monitor the interaction on his computer. _That _had been interesting: it appeared that Jim's analysis of Duran's enjoyment in playing games was perfectly correct, judging by the pointed banter she engaged in with Zanon when that woman returned to the bland, sterile room. It gave the watching Englishman a few flashbacks to the old days, in the last millennium, when he himself used to take unholy glee in doing the same thing at every opportunity. Before the world had gone to Hell on September 11, 2001. Before unholy glee had become a rare commodity…

Then Jim had entered the room, limping, bloodied and his bruises evident in the fullness of their technicolour glory and Duran had stopped in her tracks. For an assassin, it seemed that she was a little squeamish when it came to facing up to the physical evidence of the more sordid side of her employers. Or maybe it was just because it was Jim. She covered it well but it was still evident that his appearance had unsettled her.

"What happened to you, Jim? Get hit by a bus?" There was something false about her bravado, the slightest hint of uncertainty about what was going to happen next. When he replied the man's voice was gentle, quiet, disappointed.

"In a manner of speaking. I didn't heed your warning, Veronica. I didn't watch my back and the kitten used her claws."

_Oh, shit. That nutter of a bloody Russian. I knew that bitch couldn't be trusted… _Feeling slightly sick Duran nonetheless attempted to keep up her pretence of ignorance.

"And which kitten would that be?"

"The one you pretended to fail to assassinate." He looked at her, immense sadness in his hazel green eyes. "We know, Veronica. About you, Elena Gavrik, RussiaFirst, the whole darn shootin' match. You set me up. This is the result. So you might as well come clean and have a remote possibility of seeing the sky again one day. Either that or spend the rest of your miserable existence locked up in solitary confinement at an unspecified location where you won't even have a name. Those are your prospects. Make your choice in the next minute or we will make it for you." He turned away and slowly made his way back to the door, saying the Tallulah in passing, "Let me know when I get back to the office," and walked out, without a backwards glance. Miraculously – or perhaps not – Veronica Duran understood he was not playing a game, not this time, and began to sing.


	12. Chapter 12

**12. London and Moscow. 08:25 hours.**

A nerve centre had been set up in a secure room not far from Coaver's office and was currently being manned by Brontee. She was sitting there, looking mildly bored while monitoring the intermittent feeds coming back from Thames House, Moscow and their own agents still out in the field (currently D'wane Brandon and Raul Silva), when the two men joined her after Jim had returned from the basement. Harry's antenna for trouble had been twitching so they had repaired to the nerve centre rather than stay in the office, waiting for something to happen. After they had been briefed on the lack of action by the young lady they made themselves comfortable in a couple of chairs and carried on a desultory conversation about nothing of much import – mostly Jim complaining about how much his injuries had seized up overnight and Harry advising him to avoid getting kidnapped and chucked out of vehicles in future – until one of Brontee's computers tweeted at her.

"Sir?" Both men looked up. "Mrs Gavrik has just called Mikhail Levrov."

Excitement surged through both and, as one, they scuttled forward in their seats, leaning forward on either side of the analyst as they listened to the short conversation as it unfolded.

In Moscow, Mikhail Levrov had not long welcomed his daughter, Ekaterina, her husband and the two grand-sons, one also called Mikhail, to his post-modern glass and concrete multi-storey house perched on its steep, overgrown, green block in an affluent suburb of the capital for an afternoon visit when his phone rang. Glancing at the screen his blood froze for an instant when he saw who it was. Rising from his chair, he walked casually over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and gazed out at the view, instructing his caller, with no preliminaries,

"Say nothing until the line is secured."

In London, Elena, standing on the balcony to her suite and also gazing out over green trees, did as she was bid, waiting until the electronic screeching stopped. Before she could say anything the man at the other end of the line continued, softly but in a harsh tone,

"Alright. Why do I feel that your news will not be happy?"

Elena, already deeply annoyed by the bombshell Ilya had just dropped, replied grimly, coldly, in no mood to be smoothing anyone else's ruffled feathers,

"They brought the signing forward. To today."

He hadn't been prepared for that. But they were ready, nonetheless. Turning a little to the right, aware of his visitors, he responded with a matter-of-fact,

"Then we must resort to the contingency plan. Immediately. He's on his way."

"Can't we—" Elena started to interject but Levrov had already hung up. She slowly lowered the phone to rest against her throat while she considered what had just been unleashed. She would have preferred to have not launched the contingency just yet – she had her own ideas about how they could have countered this sudden change to the program – but it wasn't her choice so she would accept it and carry on. Now, she would need to play her part at this end. Which would mean reeling in her biggest asset and finally putting him to the use he had been intended for from the start: bringing down one of the greatest of those despised Western democracies whose ideas and lifestyle were destroying the purity of her own country and its culture as well as finally, immutably, gaining personal revenge for the lies he had told her…

In the Spartan, minimalist house in Russia, Levrov turned to look, briefly, at his family. His youngest, that lovely blonde daughter who looked so much like his own mother, the good, simple dark haired man she was married to and the two youngsters, alive with curiosity but, like their parents, already being corrupted by the shallow consumerism of the West, moving further and further away from their ancient roots towards something that was a reflection of that weak, foreign, rudderless, self-centred society which had flowered in the US after the Great Patriotic War and was rapidly spreading around the world. They would never know it, but he was about to take the bravest step in his country's history and start the last battle that would result in Mother Russia regaining her rightful place as a global superpower, admired by all, as in the time of the Tsars, for the richness of her civilisation. And, as a tasty side-line, allowing him to take his final revenge on that repugnant little sewer-rat, Vladimir Putin. Oblivious to his thoughts, his family continued to chatter around the glass table set with cheeseboards laden with imported product, fruit and biscuits and with full glasses charged with good red wine; turning away again, he dialled Yuri Zykov's number.

At the Embassy, Tallulah Zanon had entered the room just in time to catch Levrov's first words and had come to a rapid halt just inside the door, silently concentrating, like the two men, on the surprisingly clear words coming from the speakers. The silence in the room continued once Levrov had abruptly terminated the call. Brontee had no idea of what had been said and was waiting for the translation to come through but Harry and Jim had understood every word, as had Tallulah. The men lifted their eyes from the screen to gaze at each other, neither needing words to know what the other was thinking. Finally, Jim gave a shark-like smile: a battered and bruised shark, but a shark nonetheless while Harry's eyes were diamond-bright and just as cold. It was down to Tallulah to voice what they were all thinking, with her quiet,

"We seem to have received our incontrovertible confirmation, gentlemen."

"Indeed we do, Agent Zanon." Harry's voice was equally quiet but obsidian sharp as he smiled faintly at the only slightly faded Southern Belle, his mind already churning over possibilities. After a few more moments of silence the younger woman coughed discretely and asked,

"What exactly did they say? I'm sorry, Russian isn't one of my languages." It was Jim's turn to smile at her before he gave her a brief summary. "Oh. Thank you, Sir. What do we do now?"

"That's a very good question, Agent Sorenson," her senior replied, glancing over at his local compatriot. "What do you want to do, Hal?"

Gazing into the young blonde's cornflower blue eyes but not seeing her, the Englishman said,

"We wait, Brontee. It's up to our friends in Moscow for the moment, I think, although your people and mine should still keep a close eye on both Elena and Sasha and don't let up on the surveillance. Things are about to get busy."

He was right. The call set off a flurry of activity at both ends. Calum had been patched in on the link and soon confirmed that Kuzin had heard it too. The activity had started in Moscow, as soon as Levrov had terminated the conversation. Unbeknownst to him, his every word and move continued to be monitored with growing interest not only by the CIA but also by Evgeny Kuzin's associates, who, after that follow-up call from Levrov to his old second-in-command, were also following Yuri and Pavel Zykov. Regular updates were despatched to Kuzin in London, who in turn passed summaries on to an increasingly incredulous Erin and Dimitri who then lobbed them onto Jim Coaver's desk. Once there, the two older men received them, and the confirmatory information from the US agents in Moscow, with a sense of depressing inevitability. Their gut feelings, and Ruth's, had been right. RussiaFirst would stop at nothing to achieve their aim. Whatever Pavel Zykov was going to get up to on that flight from Moscow, due to take off shortly, it wouldn't be good.

"I think we it's time we got Comrade Kuzin in the loop directly, Hal," Coaver drawled after reading that latest missive from Moscow informing them that the younger Zykov had just been booked on the next flight to London.

"I believe you're right."

A phone call, followed by a video conference, solved that one. The sea-grey eyes of the white-blond Russian examined the high-definition image of his Western opposites with great interest, particularly the dark-eyed, dark blond Englishman. He hadn't heard of Sir Henry James Pearce until four years ago, after he had been transferred to the London office, but what he had heard since had intrigued him. A brilliant, impulsive maverick or an unstable loose cannon, depending on who you talked to, there was no doubting his record of spectacularly successful operations, and they were only the ones that were known. There had also been a couple of major failures but on the whole the older man's career had been the stuff of legend and his reputation for terrifying the junior echelons of security services across much of the northern hemisphere was renowned, although you wouldn't know it to look at him. Just another business-man in a nice piece of Savile Row suiting.

Much the same could be said of the American sitting with the Section D head, although his suiting looked Italian rather than English. Another one with a reputation that preceded him, Deputy Director James Jeffrey Coaver was one of the few CIA agents who had gained genuine credibility and respect within the inner ranks of the FSB and its predecessor organisation. Not the maverick that the Englishman was, his reputation was more unflappable and calculating with flashes of left-field brilliance but just as dangerous to cross. Although he wasn't looking particularly dangerous today: the right side of his face was a multi-coloured patchwork of cuts, bruises and grazes with a spectacular black eye. The young MI5 officers had mentioned the events of the previous day that had resulted in the injuries only briefly but it was clear that RussiaFirst had decided to pull out all stops if they were willing to murder a CIA Deputy Director and bring that particular lumbering leviathan down on their heads as a result. They were out of control and had to be stopped and, as someone who genuinely loved his country, Evgeny Kuzin would be quite happy to take on that task, no matter who he had to work with to complete it.

"Captain Kuzin." It was the Englishman's quiet, elegant voice. "Thank you for joining us at such short notice."

The smile that greeted his words transformed the forbidding face looking at them from the screen, revealing perfect teeth and deepening the crow's feet around the grey eyes, making them suddenly friendlier. The voice that replied was a deep bass, sonorous and with a surprisingly English tinge to it.

"The pleasure is entirely mine, Sir Harry, Director Coaver. I never dreamed of having the opportunity to work with even one, let alone two, legends of the service."

Jim and Harry glanced at each other, thinking exactly the same thing. A man who got his way by charming people. Well, neither of them were going to call him on that, as both were exponents of the same art. They wasted no more time and got to the point of the conversation, quickly forming up a plan of attack to counter whatever it was RussiaFirst might be plotting. The decision was to continue playing dumb at this end while the Russians would be tracking every move at the other. Kuzin would organise to have people at the airport and on the flight, masquerading as both crew and passengers, who would act to negate Pavel Zykov as soon as he moved; once the act had reached its end in Britain the FSB would move to close down RussiaFirst and everyone associated with, vastly pleasing their Prime Minister in the process. Harry asked Kuzin if he would be personally available to play a part in the end-game, if necessary, to which he agreed with slightly indecent alacrity. Jim brought up the subject of Ilya; a brief discussion followed and they all agreed it would be better all round if he remained ignorant of the truth. Live monitoring links would be set up between the triad once Elena moved, as they were sure she would, and selected team members would be on stand-by for an instant response. The conversation wrapped quickly and to satisfaction all around and everyone settled back to, yet again, wait.


	13. Chapter 13

**13. London. 08:50 hours.**

It was Ruth who broke the waiting next time. Once her end of the festivities was organised, she had been sitting at her desk, stewing over what direction RussiaFirst was likely to jump, when the Home Secretary had returned to the office to prepare for the momentous occasion. Spotting her staring distractedly at her computer screen while absently chewing the end of her pen, he had asked her to follow him in and closed the door behind them.

"What's happened, Ruth? You're more than mildly distracted and I need to you to be focussed today."

She smiled, looking a little sick, and told him.

"Elena Gavrik called Mikhail Levrov. They're going to bring forward their contingency plan."

The politician's blue eyes turned to marble.

"And do we know what that plan might be?"

The woman shook her head, twisting her pen in her fingers.

"No. But Pavel Zykov has just been booked on a flight from Moscow to London, later this morning, and that frightens me." Dimitri had been keeping her updated and that little snippet had just come through, making her stomach twist itself into something resembling a Celtic knot while the bad feeling she had woken up with this morning had gone into overdrive. Towers could see it all on her face and in her stance and the tendrils of her fear reached out to leave chills chasing themselves down his spine. Her next words turned the chills from their tag team chase across his back into a direct assault on the inner core of his being. "They've killed several times already and they tried to murder Jim Coaver yesterday. I don't think they would hesitate to bring that plane down, William. Probably over London."

They stared at each other for a moment, each contemplating the worst.

"Jesus Christ, Ruth, can't you people bring me some nice, fluffy news for once?"

She shook her head, still staring at him out of huge eyes.

"No. That's not the world we live in."

Suddenly feeling ancient, the politician sat heavily in his chair.

"So what do we do? Cancel this signing?"

Her response was again a negative.

"No. No point. We have to see this through. There will be FSB agents on the aircraft so we will have to trust them to stop whatever Zykov is planning before he can carry it out. We are still after the bigger fish so the signing has to go ahead."

Silence fell again while they both thought about it. Eventually Towers sighed and slumped backwards, running a hand through his silver hair.

"I want you to attend the signing, Ruth. I know there will be others there but I think having your eyes on the spot will be more valuable. You will see three times as much as I miss."

The woman nodded, acknowledging the truth of his words.

"I will let Harry know."

At the Embassy Jim had just returned to the room, bearing coffees for all after having earlier dismissed Brontee's offer to fetch them, citing the exercise being good for his stiffening muscles, when Harry's phone rang. He glanced at it and the American noted with some interest as his friend's face softened momentarily, before he schooled his features back to their normal impassivity and answered with a single word.

"Ruth."

"Harry, William Towers wants me to attend the signing. I think I should be wired. My sixth sense has been in overdrive all morning – I think something might happen while we're there."

Judging by the way his own warning bells had been getting louder and louder over the same period, he thought she was right. His own fears were much the same as hers: he knew they wouldn't wait until that aeroplane had landed so something was going to happen while it was in the air, probably once it was in British air space, which gave them about five hours to prepare for it. So if Ruth's intuition was telling her it would be a good idea for her to be carrying a wire, then carry a wire she would.

"I agree. Can you make it over to Thames House to get kitted out or do you want me to send someone over?"

"I've got time to get there and then to the venue if I leave now." She gave a hesitant laugh. "It will give me something to do apart from sit here and stew."

"Okay. Call me again when you get there so we can set up the link. Calum should be able to hook you into the network so that we can all hear you."

The phone call ended and Harry continued to stare at the coffee in front of him for a moment, thinking about what it might mean that both of them were thinking the same thing. Coaver had continued to watch him during the brief conversation and, despite his friend's best efforts, had still been able to see the hint of softness in his eyes and hear the almost intimate tone in his voice. _So that's how it was, huh?_ _Looked like the old rumours might have some truth in them after all._ Well, he hoped it would work out well for Harry: he had certainly earned some personal happiness after all this time…

They returned to waiting.


	14. Chapter 14

**14. London. 09:30 hours.**

The signing ceremony had only been going on for ten minutes and Ruth was already bored but her jangling nerves wouldn't let her relax. Standing, arms crossed, just outside the tall open double doorway into the room, her dark blue overcoat and skirt and dark boots helped her meld into the equally gloomy background of the hallway as she concentrated on her target. Not the politicians seated at the ceremonial timber dais at the far end of the aisle, flanked by the flags of their respective countries, but the woman sitting at the inner end of the second from the front row of plush seating, her red hair unmistakeable against the dark interior. Despite the large leadlight windows behind the podium and the lighter marble floors, the small room still needed the assistance of its interior lighting, although it did little to dispel the shadows, and Elena Gavrik's old-fashioned hairstyle was one of the few bright splashes in it, at least from this angle, from where the gold embossed red velvet upholstery was mostly invisible.

Applause suddenly broke out and Ruth realised that the deal had been done as both Towers and Ilya stood up to shake hands, photographers rushing forward to record the moment for posterity and the various flunkies from either side moving in to begin packing up. Unlike Ruth, who stayed exactly where she was, waiting. As though able to sense the younger woman's gaze, Elena turned in her seat and looked straight back at her, her face an expressionless mask. Holding her nerve as the Russian rose from her seat, Ruth vaguely heard one of the photographers requesting the politicians to turn towards him as the crowd began to get up and leave but nothing else, her eyes only for the approaching woman, elegant in a shining, slightly stiff lilac suit that was clearly designed as a homage to the 1950s and set off by discrete nude court shoes and clutch bag. Wasting no time, Elena said,

"Ruth, I have to see Harry. I have new information."

The words were delivered as an ultimatum, with no expectation of a refusal but Ruth wasn't about to give in to her demands so easily and so stared back, unflinching.

"I'm afraid that's impossible." She was pleased to see a flicker of surprise in the tawny hazel eyes looking down at her and a brief, questioning look cross the perfectly made-up face. Taking pleasure in her opportunity to wrong-foot the woman Ruth explained, equally bluntly, "He's being taken to the US to answer questions about Jim Coaver's death."

The words, however, didn't seem to register. Elena looked down at the petite brunette in her dark clothing, a diamond pendant glittering at her throat, and smiled patronisingly. This drab little piece didn't seriously think she was going to get in the way of Elena's plans, surely? She had no hope of succeeding there because the woman clearly had no idea of who she was really dealing with. What on earth did Harry see in her?

"You don't understand. Lives are at risk but I can only speak to him."

Sasha had reported back this morning that Harry had been escorted to the US Embassy by a group of CIA agents but this story of being extradited? Highly unlikely but, even if it was true, she knew she could change that plan with a few, carefully selected, words. Ruth, however, was holding her gaze, showing no sign of backing down. Back in their nerve centre in the Embassy, Jim and Harry exchanged glances while Brontee concentrated on ensuring the integrity of the recording. Ruth's intuition was right: Elena was about to step into the front line herself.

"What do you mean?" Ruth's question, delivered in a perfectly level tone, came through with uncanny clarity to the listeners at Thames House, the Embassy and the FSB's communications centre. There was silence for a moment as the other woman turned to look back towards the dais, where her husband and the Home Secretary were still talking and having photographs taken. What came next both chilled every listener to the core while, at the same time, unknown to Elena, slamming the door very firmly shut on her future.

"The woman who shot at me—" she turned back and stared, unblinking, eyes darkly opaque, at her companion, "—is Veronica Duran. A free-lance black ops asset who worked for the CIA. Collison. A man who tried to assassinate my husband, gained entry by hacking into the security database with a rigged net-worm. The poison used to kill Tariq Masood was a hydrogen cyanide derivative, administered by an intradermal punch needle." It was a moot point at this moment which of the listeners paled the most but it was probably Harry. There it was, in a few emotionless words: confirmation of three decades of treachery, three decades of being comprehensively fooled. Any residual doubt that he may have been faintly harbouring that they were doing the right thing evaporated into the dry, air-conditioned atmosphere of their darkened room, allowing the full strength of his implacable desire for revenge to reach its zenith. She would pay for those thirty years, and for Max Witt, John Grogan, even Anatoly Arkanov but, most of all, for Tariq. In full.

Back at the venue, Elena's smile was quick, superior, as she looked at Ruth, convinced of her control. "Now, do you see why I have to speak to Harry?" They continued to stare at each other for a moment, neither giving ground although Ruth's heart was hammering so loudly she wondered if everyone else could hear it. Without warning, Elena stepped forward and turned to stand next to Ruth, both now facing into the room, as she calmly delivered her ultimatum. "Get me in a room with Harry. Today."

Ruth watched her walk back into the room and resume her seat, her movements fluid and graceful, before turning away and making her own steadfast way down the corridor towards the exit, pulling her mobile phone out to ring Harry. Behind her, unseen, Sasha appeared from the interior of the room and watched her figure recede into the distance, eyes bitter.


	15. Chapter 15

**15. London 09:50 hours/Moscow 12:50 hours.**

Unable to raise Harry – his phone was constantly engaged, he and Jim on a conference call from Evgeny Kuzin – Ruth eventually got through to Erin.

"Ruth. You were brilliant. Maybe we shouldn't have let you go."

Slightly flustered at the unexpected praise from her younger former colleague she replied,

"Oh, it was, it was nothing. You got it all?"

"Every syllable. Calum's very pleased with how well his toy performed."

"Good. Good." Silence fell for a moment. "Now what, Erin? That was unimpeachable proof of Elena Gavrik's guilt and her involvement with RussiaFirst. I will have to tell the Home Secretary but he will want to know what we are doing next." She was out on the front steps of the building now, her back to one of the over-sized Doric columns as she scanned her surroundings. The day was overcast, explaining the gloom inside the building, and was threatening more rain before it was over, with a chill wind blowing scraps of paper down the street. There were few people about, by far the majority of the populace blissfully oblivious to the momentous event that had just taken place. Some of them would see it on the news that night; fewer still would have an opinion on it and the rest would continue their lives, untouched by something that had cost so many lives. Untouched, that is, if they could prevent whatever it was that RussiaFirst was planning.

"Now we give her what she wants, Ruth. We give her Harry." Her voice was calm but the relish at the prospect of setting up something the size of RussiaFirst was clearly evident. Ruth wasn't so delighted. Despite knowing their actions would probably lead to something like this, she had been hoping that the gut-clenching fear she had woken up with had not been a precursor to something real but it seemed she was wrong. "Ruth?"

"Yes? Sorry, I was thinking. Do we really have to—"

"We do. Somehow we're going to have to find a way of getting them together, and soon. Pavel Zykov is due to get on his flight to London any minute and once he's off the ground we have four hours before they get here. Less than that to find out what they're planning and stop it. We're going to need you, too, Ruth."

The older woman hesitated for a moment, her heart-rate accelerating as she wondered what was coming next. "What for?"

It was Erin's turn to hesitate. She knew Ruth wouldn't like what she was about to say but hoped she would at least see that it made sense.

"We may need you to extract Elena when we're ready."

"_What? _No—"

"Yes." There was momentary steel in her voice, pulling Ruth's incipient panic attack up before it started. "Please, Ruth. You know it makes sense. We need to get Harry to the meeting point and we need to get her there, separately. She sent the message through you so she will not be surprised to see you again and you won't be alone. Cal will help you get her out."

"Erin, I don't have clearance." Much as she wanted to be a part of the destruction of RussiaFirst, having to be the courier to deliver Elena Gavrik to her former lover, even if it was for the final reckoning, was galling. The former lover whom she herself had loved, hopelessly, for the better part of a decade but had yet to take to her bed—

"Ruth, if we're going to do this, we need you. You're our inside woman." Erin's voice cut in again, diverting her thoughts from the path down which they were hurtling, a path that led to nowhere good. "Anyway, don't you like the idea of taking that bloody woman to her judgement day?"

_Yes. Yes, she did. _Nerves settling again, Ruth glanced back into the building and could see the principals beginning to make their way towards her.

"Put that way, how can I refuse? The Home Secretary is coming out so I have to go but can you get Harry to call me when he can, with the plan?"

"Of course. Thank you, Ruth."

In Moscow, a tall man in his early thirties with a fashionably shaved head had already driven his luxury car to Domodedovo Airport. Once there, he had parked in the long-term car park and made his way into Departures and towards check-in and customs. With no luggage apart from his briefcase, he was not delayed by the necessity to load that on board and passed quickly through the crowds, attracting no attention. Reaching the security screening point he joined the queue and waited quietly as those before him slowly made their way through, putting their bags and cases on the conveyor in a quite orderly fashion. Behind the machine the security woman glanced along the line of passengers and froze for an instant when she saw the man dressed in an elegant dark grey open-necked shirt with black jacket and trousers. _Shit, it was him – he really was here. _Taking a deep breath she attempted to steady her nerves to get through the next few minutes.

Pavel Zykov placed his briefcase on the conveyor and glanced at the woman just as she looked up at him. About the same age as him, she had dark hair cut short and dark eyes, her stern expression appearing slightly severe. He vaguely recognised her from party meetings over the past several years and had been advised by his father that she was completely reliable and devoted to their ideals, so would have no issues in putting his case through without a fuss. As she glanced up she said, impersonally, only the slightest hint of nerves present,

"Good morning, Sir. How are you?"

"Tired," he responded, abruptly, dropping his case onto the conveyor. "I've had a long journey already from St Petersburg." It was the trigger phrase to confirm who he was and she swallowed, her heart racing as her eyes flicked to the people around him, half expecting them to show some recognition as well. In front of Zykov a business woman in her late forties with cropped, fashionably grey-dyed hair in a quiff and dressed in a grey-green woollen suit bearing the Chanel logo was picking her bag up off the conveyor. Behind him a couple, the man in his fifties, also with grey hair, dressed in a conservative dark suit, light blue shirt and darker tie and the younger woman, ash blonde hair streaked in platinum who was wrapped in a long, dark jacket with wide cream fur collar and cuffs, were preparing to drop their bags behind the briefcase. None of them took the slightest bit of notice of Zykov but the security woman knew that was deliberate, at least on the part of the couple, as she also knew that they were FSB operatives. As indeed she herself was, after a fashion. What RussiaFirst didn't know was that Inna Sergeievna Makarova had been a sleeper agent for the FSB for twelve years, recruited when she first entered University and placed within RussiaFirst while still a student to watch and report on developments. Earlier today, just before she had come on shift, she had been contacted by her handler and given her orders to let Zykov through, no matter what she saw in his carry-on baggage, which happened to be the same message she had received in a phone call from Yuri Zykov himself about half an hour afterwards. Glancing back at him she gave him the coded response.

"The museums in St Petersburg are the best in the country."

He could tell she was nervous by the way her eyes flicked down and then up again and he stared back at her, hard, a non-verbal warning to control herself.

"But not as good as the galleries."

Inna put the case through without another word, positioning herself so that no-one else could see the screen or what was on it: various metallic pieces, cylinders and wiring. Possibly a bomb but also possibly not – there was something about it that didn't look quite right. Yet again she glanced over at the man, uneasy about what he was carrying, and he looked straight back, then nodded almost imperceptibly, picked up the bag from the far side of the scanner and walked off through the glass gates towards the air bridge. She watched him go, the relief flooding through her leaving her slightly dizzy, then turned back to the FSB agents following him. The man looked at her, a question in his eyes; her own dark ones blinked an affirmative. Oblivious, Zykov reached the air bridge, handed over his boarding pass for the flight to London and moved to a seat in the departure lounge. He only had a few minutes to wait before they were due to board.


	16. Chapter 16

**16. London. 11:30 hours.**

The late morning had been busy so far for Ilya Gavrik with a series of interviews for both print and electronic media. By just before lunch he was onto his fifth, with a journalist from the financial pages of The Times, but was managing to remain interested in the constantly repeated questions nonetheless, taking time to revel in his success. The venue was one of the private reception rooms at his hotel, decorated in richly luxurious crimson and gold with heavy chairs, mirrors, a piano and a chandelier and subtle desk lights or multi-armed gold candelabras scattered around. The floor was of the best Travertine marble and a high-end glass topped coffee table, spread with equally high-end glossy magazines was between the Russian Minister and his interviewer. Slightly off to one side, seated on a red velvet chair embroidered in gold in front of the piano, Elena was watching the action with apparent interest and pride in her husband's achievements but in reality bored and itching to get on with the action, despite knowing that Zykov was still hours away. She had been expecting some form of message to join Harry but so far none had materialised and she was beginning to get anxious. Perhaps what Ruth had said had been right, and they had been unable to extract him from the clutches of the despised Americans…

"In my eyes, there have always been more similarities between us than differences," Ilya was saying, his voice reflecting his satisfaction at being able to promulgate his pet theories to a wider audience while appearing magnanimous about the past. "After all, we are both experts in the loss of empire—"

A soft knock at the door interrupted them and everyone in the room stopped and looked. The bodyguard standing against the wall behind both of his employers, another young, large, former Eastern European of the type they favoured for the job, went to answer it but Elena got up and stopped him. Somehow, she knew this was the call she had been waiting for. Touching the man lightly on the arm in passing she said warmly,

"Pyotr, let me," and walked past him to the door, giving him no alternative but to let her go. In the background the interviewer had resumed his questioning.

"Setting aside the Relationship…"

Carefully opening the door, she was unsurprised to find Ruth standing there, a pale grey trench-coat thrown over the top of her unremittingly blue clothes. Smiling impersonally, the Englishwoman said,

"Mrs Gavrik, some ladies from the Women's Institute are here. They would like to talk to you about the role of the wives in the making of this deal?"

The Russian smiled, confident, arrogant, superior. As she had expected, they had come running to her whistle like the dogs they were.

"Thank you." She walked back into the main room in time to hear Ilya saying,

"…commercial advantage. Gas, for example—"

"Ilya." Interrupting without hesitation she leaned forward and rested a hand on his upper arm, smiling. "Have fun. I have an interview of my own!"

He gazed up at her fondly and put his hand over hers, responding with a delighted,

"Oh!" as he kissed her hand and smiled back at her for a moment before returning his attention to the interviewer and continuing his answer to the man's question.

"Yes, gas. Its supply to the West…"

Gracefully picking up her clutch in passing she returned to the door, the bodyguard following the requisite three steps behind. Rejoining Ruth without another word, the pair headed down the corridor towards the elevator, trailed by the man.

"You need to shake him, now," Ruth murmured a little above a whisper and then walked ahead, maintaining her distance. The trio had reached the corner to the lifts when Elena turned to the young man and said politely, charmingly apologetic,

"Pyotr, I have left my scarf. It's on the bed. Would you get it? We'll wait here." Knowing an order when he heard one, no matter how nicely phrased, and also knowing by now how ill-advised it was to not immediately carry out any task set for him by either of his employers, he returned to the room. The lift pinged its arrival and both women got in, Ruth leading the way and standing behind Elena, staring with poisonous eyes at the back of that woman's scarlet-dyed head. The elevator was empty so as soon as it began its descent, she said, softly, sibilantly, the threat inherent in her tone,

"Elena, if you've withheld information that could have helped us earlier—" the pause spoke volumes "—we're going to have a problem."

_Who on earth did this little drab think she was? An unimportant analyst, so tied up in her own inadequacies that she was easier to manipulate than plasticine. And she was in love with Harry Pearce, the poor, stupid woman… What a spineless pair they would make._

Lips curving in that self-satisfied smile that Ruth was beginning to hate, Elena finally responded, enjoying the game and the opportunity to exercise her authority with a deliberately pointed question.

"You understand the guilt Harry has always felt about me. About Sasha. Do you think it's what kept you from being together?" There was a deathly silence as Ruth's face hardened and she glanced at the back of the Russian's head again and then away, not dignifying the question with an answer. Still gazing straight ahead at the lift door, she added, "Don't worry. Harry will see things differently soon."

_I already do,_ the man himself thought, listening to the slightly muffled conversation _via _Ruth's wire from his position in the American Embassy. Jim and his team had already left for the venue, as had Evgeny Kuzin and the FSB crew, leaving Harry behind to wait for Erin and Dimitri. They would be the tail end of the convoy heading for the Estuary in Essex, where this problem would finally, once and for all, be dealt with.

Arriving in the lobby, the two women moved through it and out past the top-hatted doorman without a backwards glance. From his position at the far end of the room, Sasha watched them go, then followed as they walked a short distance down the footpath.

Calum was waiting in the black Mercedes, keeping an eye on the passing parade, and spotted the women as soon as they emerged from the building, watching them approach in the wing mirror. Ruth scanned the surroundings as she opened the rear passenger's door while Elena, supremely confident, moved around to the driver's side and they both got in. Turning his attention back to the windscreen from watching the Russian inthe mirror, he asked facetiously,

"Where to, girls? Don't say south of the river—"

The passenger's door opening cut off his words and he glanced over to see, with a despairing sense of inevitability, Sasha Gavrik getting in. Before he could react the younger man had pulled out a pistol and pointed it at his chest. In the back of the vehicle, Ruth noticed a fleeting expression of something that might have been fear in the other woman's eyes before her iron control re-exerted itself.

"Sasha—"

"What is this? Where are you going?" Both confused and deeply suspicious, Sasha couldn't see any reason to be polite, even to his mother. He no longer trusted her, anybody, after what had happened over the past few weeks and after what he had seen on that laptop of Coaver's, and was finding it harder and harder to retain his fragile grip on his emotions so he was no longer inclined to even the pretence of civility. Hearing it all in his voice and rattled by his very presence, Elena explained soothingly,

"I need to speak with Harry urgently. They are taking me to him." She reached forward to grab his shoulder, gazing at him intently, beseeching him to accept the explanation and get out of the car. Watching the exchange with interest, Ruth suddenly realised she was seeing the first sign of weakness in the woman: as she was Ilya's Achille's Heel, so Sasha was hers. Good. They could definitely use that. Looking every bit as confused as he felt, the boy looked from his mother to the MI5 officer next to him and back again.

"You're going to meet him now?"

"Yeah," Calum drawled, tired of the drama already. The sooner they got this lot sorted, the better. He and D'wane had plans for tonight and they really didn't need a family of Russian psychopaths getting in their way. Sasha looked at him and made the snap decision that none of them wanted to hear. That birth certificate had been eating away at his soul ever since he had seen it and now there was an opportunity to face up to this man – his _father _– and ask the truth.

"I would like to talk to him myself." Doing up his seatbelt he stared forward, steadfast, waiting; when nothing happened he glanced over at Calum and ordered, "Drive."

_Oh, Christ, here we go. Sonny boy has accepted the invite to the party and is getting stroppy already. That's all we bloody need. _Calum shook his head at the thought and sighed heavily, muttering just loudly enough for everyone, including Harry, to hear as he started the vehicle, "Nothing like a nice day out with all the family."

Elena sat back in her seat. This had not been meant to happen, Sasha was not meant to be a part of what was coming. For the first time, she had a very bad feeling about what was to happen in the next few hours. As they moved out into the traffic Ruth glanced over at the woman sitting next to her and saw, to her quiet satisfaction, the uneasiness that was evident on her immaculate face. Picking up her phone, she quietly sent a text to Towers confirming the success of this part of the mission. Harry, having heard it all clearly enough, was satisfied. The plan was working and they would all be together when the trap was finally sprung.

The previous two hours had been frantic. Kuzin had been on the phone to Harry and Jim as soon as Elena had finished talking to Ruth, resulting in an impromptu planning session. Representatives from all three bureaux would take part, both behind the scenes and, eventually, front and centre on the stage, most obviously starting with Harry and with Jim and Evgeny in the wings. Ultimately the FSB would take both Elena and Sasha back to Moscow to answer for their crimes against Russia – with the proof that RussiaFirst's plans were indeed a personal attack on Prime Minister Putin Ilya would be in no position to protect them while Kuzin himself would make them pay for the deaths of Anatoly Arkanov and Nadia Dubrovska, the graduate FSB agent who had been murdered by Collison at the Reception at Bannon Hall – but the two Westerners prevailed on Kuzin to allow them access to Elena first, Jim on the charge of attempted murder against himself and Harry for much more: the murders of Max Witt and Tariq Masood, involvement in the deaths of John Grogan and Marcus Collison and for planning a terrorist attack on the UK. Much of the interaction would have to be played by ear but the end result was never going to be in doubt. All that had to be done was find a suitable venue and set it up. They weren't worried about whatever Zykov was up to on the flight – Kuzin had complete faith in the agents he had planted at the airport and among the passengers to counter any action and had authorised everything up to and including use of deadly force – but they were short of time to find the site for their own part of the operation. Harry had given himself half an hour to find something; in the meantime, Jim would get D'wane to liaise with Thames House and Kuzin to sort out the technical side. Everything would need to be recorded on site, as well as relayed back to the monitors from all three organisations, for use as further evidence.

As soon as Kuzin had terminated their conference call Harry checked the messages waiting for him from Ruth and Erin and had rung both of them back, updating them on the plan and asking them to also consider any suitable venues, preferably outside of the city, that they could use. Five minutes short of his self-imposed deadline Ruth had called back. She had remembered an old Ministry of Defence bunker on the northern bank of the Thames Estuary that had occasionally been mentioned during her time at GCHQ, had checked on it and, surprisingly, it fitted perfectly. Remote, reinforced, still with power connected and able to be physically isolated from its surroundings, it was exactly what they needed. From then on, the set-up ran like clockwork

At about the time that Ilya Gavrik had sat down to start his fifth interview of the afternoon, Pavel Zykov was sitting in his expensive, Business Class seat at 38,000 feet above northern Europe, watching the flight tracker on the screen in front of him showing that they were inside Polish airspace. _Slightly more than half way through the flight_, he thought. He probably had about half an hour before they commenced their descent and then it would be time to start thinking about executing the plan. Unconsciously he touched the briefcase under the seat, just as the air hostess approached. Noticing his move, the young woman started to pick up the case but Zykov stopped her, looking up at her sharply, suspiciously, as she asked innocently,

"Would you like me to put your case in the overhead locker, Sir?"

"No…thank you." The apology tempered the abrupt response and Anna Ivanovna Kurgapkina, flight attendant and fully-fledged FSB agent, graciously retired and headed back to the galley, regretting that this attempt to purloin the case had failed. Never mind, there would be other opportunities as the flight progressed…


	17. Chapter 17

**17. MoD Facility, Thames Estuary. 12:05 hours.**

It was just past mid-day when the black Audi containing Harry, Erin and Dimitri arrived at the abandoned Ministry of Defence facility on the northern bank of the Thames Estuary in Essex. Passing through an old-fashioned wooden gate, the vehicle crunched down a gravelled track between thick, six-foot high green shrubbery that was currently being stirred by a chill wind until it reached a wire fence and gate that was twice the height of the vegetation, topped with barbed wire and covered in MoD warning signs. Calum had left the padlock and chain discretely open so it took little time to get to the somewhat weedy parking area where they left the car and proceeded down hill on foot to their destination.

The wind was stronger once away from the protection of the woods, making both of the younger people glad for their jackets and trousers although Harry, in the lead, didn't seem to be feeling the cold as the wind blew his unbuttoned jacket open. He was starting to run on adrenaline and was preparing for the acting performance of his life, not even aware of the wind, the grey overcast lowering above them or the occasional spits of rain as they approached Ruth, waiting on the path to the main bunker. She had left her trench coat in the bunker, along with her wire, and was now regretting the former, shivering slightly as she watched the group approach from the east, dark figures against a gloomy background, the only splashes of brightness the green of the low, grassy mounds uphill of the path and the white of Harry's shirt.

There was little for the trio to see. The Cold War facility itself was of low, reinforced concrete – more grey between the grey sky, grey water and the line of grey high-tension power lines marching across the landscape on the southern side of the estuary – with the only obvious pointer to its presence being the old, World War 2 vintage radar/observation tower that was looming between them and Ruth. Constructed of battered red bricks and more mouldering concrete, it was an angular feature consisting of a lower and an upper room separated by rusting iron girders standing about three storeys high and set on stumps actually out over the water. A battered metal ladder led between the mud of the exposed river bed and a heavy, greenish metal door that gave access to the lower room. Walking past it to join the others, Ruth was vaguely aware of birds twittering on the wind and the smell of river mud but only as a background to what was about to happen. Finally catching Harry's eye she couldn't stop a gentle smile forming as he said,

"I didn't think this place still existed."

"Well it doesn't, officially, that's why I thought it would be right."

He nodded and they continued to walk at speed along the gravel, seaweed and shells of the strand towards the bunker, ignoring the weather, the water and the sea-birds wheeling overhead. Turning to look at the woman by his side he asked,

"Has Elena said anything else?"

She didn't look up, too busy watching her footing on the loose, slightly treacherous surface.

"No, she'll only talk to you."

Still looking at her he commented flatly, confirming what he already knew,

"Sasha has joined us."

"Mmm." She was unenthusiastic, having had the trip to think about it and deciding that they had probably destabilised that young man enough that his presence could be either a boon or a curse. Sighing silently she added, "Yeah, he wouldn't give up his gun but I don't think he's worked it out, I think he just wants to know what's going on." Finally looking over at him she saw him examining the tower as they approached but he flicked a glance her direction as he responded with a determined,

"Don't we all."

In London, Ilya Gavrik was standing at the window of the suite they had been using for the interviews, the diffuse light coming through the sheer white gauze curtains washing out the colour of his beautifully tailored grey suit and the subtly patterned, perfectly knotted pale brown tie at the throat of his crisp white shirt. Although the shirt wouldn't stay crisp for much longer: he was beginning to sweat and it wasn't because of the temperature of the room or the fine woollen fabric of his coat. It had been over half an hour since Elena had gone off to her interview and promptly vanished and he was beginning to worry. Surely Harry wouldn't have been so stupid—

A knock on the door distracted him and he turned to see Pyotr, the body-guard who had lost track of Elena, hesitantly enter the room, his dark eyes wary.

"Did you find her?" His question was curt with worry as the young man replied,

"Sorry, Minister, there is still no sign of your wife."

The panic was starting to rise from his gut into his chest now. Closing his eyes briefly, he turned back to stare out the window, a sepulchral shadow among the rich, overwrought crimson and gold of the décor, trying not to think the worst.

"Sir?" Irritated, Ilya looked back at him, just wanting him to get out and find her but what came next redoubled the dread. "We can't find Sasha, either." When no response came the young man beat a hasty retreat. His employer watched him go, momentarily speechless from fear. First his wife and now his son. What the _hell _was going on?

In Essex, Sasha himself was sitting alone in one of the labyrinth of rooms, totally unaware of who and what was buried in the depths beyond. Like the rest of the complex, the room he was in was low, built of concrete and metal, with left over bits of out-dated technology scattered around, including an old-fashioned telephone on the dusty white ops table at which he was seated and the equally old-fashioned tape-to-tape computer drives the size of a wardrobe standing in ranks in the room behind him, disappearing into the unlit gloom. A dull, cobwebby window let in very little light but the atmosphere suited his mood: what was that English saying about being treated like a mushroom, being kept in the dark and fed bull-shit? He knew exactly how that felt but, if he was a mushroom, he was a very angry and confused one. He had no idea of what the truth was concerning his mother and, although he was here to find out, he wasn't looking forward to whatever was about to happen.

The metallic clang of the outer doors opening and then slamming closed alerted him to the new arrivals and he looked up to see Harry approaching, looking as grim as he himself was feeling. Standing up, he waited for the older man to join him and they stared at each other for a moment, wondering how to start. Harry was unarmed while he was still dressed in his work uniform of dark blue open-necked shirt and green trousers, his shoulder holster openly carrying its weapon. Finally, not knowing exactly what else to say now that he was faced with this man who was apparently his real father, Sasha shook his head and asked,

"What are we doing here, Harry?"

Gazing at this lost-looking young man who had been his son but now was not, never had been, Harry couldn't bring himself to respond in anything other than a kindly manner. None of this was his fault. He was the real victim of his mother's games. Moving closer he said,

"I'm hoping your mother is going to enlighten us." Stopping at the end of the desk he added gently, "You're welcome to listen to our conversation, Sasha, but you'll have to give me your side-arm." They stared at each other, each a little uncertain of how the other was about to react, until Sasha did as he was bid, taking the gun out and removing the magazine in one swift movement before handing the pistol itself over. Almost in concert each placed their piece on the table and the uncomfortable silence returned. Sasha looked as stressed as he felt, unnerved in the presence of the older man now that he had seen the Coaver file and completely at sea about what to do or say next, while Harry, intuitively understanding, felt nothing but sympathy although his face remained impassive. Eventually, inevitably, it was the Russian who spoke first.

"I… read … Jim Coaver's file." The Englishman couldn't stop the empathy showing on his face. In his own way Harry was as lost in this particular situation as Sasha. Although he might have played a part in setting up the laptop ruse that had got Sasha here, he had rather hoped that the birth certificates wouldn't have been included on it. Silly, really, when it was the one thing guaranteed to tip the boy over the edge and get him where they wanted him. It was with a deep regret that he said quietly,

"I know." The desire to say something, anything, to reassure the boy was almost impossible to resist but there was something in the blue eyes looking back at him, some deep fear of what he might find out despite the desperation of also wanting to ask or hear that something, that held him back. They were both rescued by the ringing of Sasha's phone. Pulling it out of his pocket, the younger man checked the screen and swallowed, obviously.

"It's my f—" The young man stopped himself and they looked at each other intently, uncomfortably, before he went on, correcting himself bitterly, "it's Ilya Gavrik." The pain of that admission almost took his breath away. Ilya had been a remote but loving father, an oddly indulgent disciplinarian who took intense pride in his son's achievements and had been a cool, reliable counterbalance to the cloying attentions of his mother. Both of them had been devoted to their child and their country and had brought him up to put family and country first and now he had found out that his mother had been a traitor for all of his life and his father had never been his father. Ilya had never known, surely? He shuddered at the thought of what would probably happen if Ilya ever did find out the truth about his mother's perfidy. Torn between love and hate for all of them, he didn't argue when Harry said,

"Let me speak to him," handing over the phone without demur. "Ilya."

Back in the city, Gavrik was stunned to hear the familiar, velvet tones come down the line from his son's phone. _What the hell did this mean?_

"Harry? Where is my son?"

The reply was measured and calm.

"He's with me. And so is your wife. She has information. I'm about to hear it."

_What? Was he trying to insinuate that Elena was still working for him, after all these years? No, this was some sort of twisted, personal revenge aimed at Ilya himself, else why take Sasha too? The man had completely lost his mind._ In frozen anger he finally ground out,

"I'm informing your Home Secretary. Then I'm coming to get my family."

The threat in his voice was impossible to miss and made Harry glad. He would have no objection at all if Ilya joined them: it might be educational for the older man to find out the truth about his precious wife.

"Certainly. I'll send you our co-ordinates."

That response flabbergasted Ilya Gavrik more than anything else could have. Furious and yet still not believing what he had just heard, he asked incredulously,

"Why would you do that?"

"Because you couldn't possibly get here before she tells me the truth." _That should get him going._ The Englishman had terminated the call after that comment, leaving his Russian former counterpart even more stunned. He had no idea of what was going on but, whatever it was, it was bad. He was still staring at the phone, trying to work it all out, when Pyotr returned.

"Everything alright, Sir?"

Ilya's voice was glacial as he replied, staring at something the young man couldn't see,

"Bring the car round to the front. I will drive myself."


	18. Chapter 18

**18. MoD Facility. 12:15 hours.**

Sasha followed Harry back down the dull corridor to another heavy green metal door on the right. He had passed it on the way in, barely noticing at the time that his mother, Ruth and their driver, whom he had remembered from the Reception when the two of them had been searching for the assassin, had stopped there as he had continued on his way to the desk and chairs, wanting nothing more than a chance to sit down and think, _alone_. The door had been open then; now it was closed and he noted with disinterest the words TELE. OP. ONE stencilled in white across it. A relic of the building's past; there were many similar such doors and buildings in Moscow so the only thing of note here was that Ruth and the young man had been joined by two others. One was the glamorous, slender woman barely older than himself with a cascade of dark waves and grey-blue eyes, dressed in a fitted dark trouser suit over a lighter camisole top and in heels whom he knew was Harry's Section Chief, Erin Watts; the other was one of her senior field officers whose name he didn't know but he, too, had been at that Reception. As they had all been together at the beginning now they were together at what he feared was going to be an ending of some sort. His mother, though, was not present; before he could question them, the tall, dark-haired man had pulled the door open, its almost continual squeak of protesting hinges echoing around the building, to reveal Elena standing, alone, in the large room beyond. Suddenly infuriated beyond belief, he demanded,

"What is this? She is not your prisoner." Trying to push through he was physically stopped by Harry and Erin. The older man, not wanting the young Russian to lose control quite yet, voiced a conciliatory,

"You are right. The door will remain unlocked." There was no danger, Harry knew that. Elena wouldn't get far if she tried to get away anyway, between the remoteness of the site and the amount of people who were around, albeit concealed from these, the main players. The inner room was divided into two by a concertina gate of metal-work, blocking off access to the complex beyond and it was in that complex that the others were waiting and watching. Jim, Tallulah and D'wane were there, as was Evgeny Kuzin and one of his people, a bright junior by the name of Vasili Pavlov, all hovering around the computer screens showing the feeds from the active parts of the building, both interior and exterior, which had been set up in a feverish rush by D'wane before Calum and his passengers had arrive and was now also linked into Calum's computer, set up in another room off the end of the observation area. Outside, two more of Kuzin's agents, hand-picked by himself, along with Tom Defoe and Raul Silva, were scattered around, out of sight but listening in, armed to the teeth and prepared for action. From her position by the old light table in the low-ceilinged room, the weak fluorescent lights casting a slightly sickly pallor over everything and totally unaware of the being completely surrounded, the woman herself called soothingly,

"Sasha. It's alright."

Still holding him back, Erin said, gently,

"Come on. This way." When he didn't move but remained glaring at Harry, she clapped a hand behind his shoulders and forced him to turn away from the door and walk into the observation room adjacent to the map room, followed by Ruth and Dimitri. Calum remained behind for a moment, silently handing over the old-fashioned key to the room with an unspoken look of understanding before turning away to follow the others as Harry walked off for his final showdown with this woman who had already damaged or destroyed so many lives.

It was odd, he thought, aware of the five pairs of eyes watching from behind the one-way mirrors as he closed the door behind him and stood, staring at Elena as though he had never seen her before, but he actually felt nothing. He didn't know what he had expected but it was not this total disconnect from the woman standing in front of him. It was a relief, the clear-headedness: it meant he had truly crawled out from under her shadow and was ready to do what had to be done, with no doubts or regrets. She was staring back at him, still elegant, still beautiful, still thinking she was in control but now he knew the truth she had absolutely no power over him. Something she was about to find out.

Eventually he walked forward, allowing himself to appear wary. Without taking her eyes off him she said, without preamble,

"There is a major attack planned on London in a few hours. I don't know any details, all I have is a number of a go-between. 020 7946 0628. He handles their communications."

Behind the mirrored window Sasha almost staggered in disbelief. What was she talking about? A terrorist attack? How did she know about it? Surely she couldn't be directly involved so she must have got it from somewhere else. Something Harry had said in the car to that woman echoed in his memory: _This is beginning to positively reek of Ilya Gavrik. _He had smashed the computer before he had got that far, something he was now beginning to regret—

"Who are '_they_'?" Harry asked, breaking Sasha's train of thought.

"I will tell you everything I know but, please, you must find this man." Harry dropped his gaze to the floor, feigning disinterest although his gut reaction told him she was admitting the truth. It was only what they had expected, as soon as they had heard that the younger Zykov was boarding that aeroplane but he hadn't expected her to come out with it quite so baldly. A measure of her belief in her own superiority, he presumed. As were her next words which were delivered in a harder voice, almost like an order. "There isn't much time." When he didn't immediately respond she took a couple of steps closer and he looked up again, features still schooled to expressionless as she reinforced her words. "Harry, they want hundreds of deaths." Holding each other's gaze he thought it was about time he started to react and so allowed a degree of the fury he did indeed feel at her statement to colour his expression before he turned and walked out without another word.

Ignoring the young Russian, Harry walked straight out to the back room to join his crew who were clustered around Calum and his laptop. Like the rest of the building this area was cutting-edge early-1960's functional design: metal lined with another low ceiling, the few dim lights achieved nothing except to make the room appear even darker, shedding their weak rays over a long rusted-steel trough with half a dozen taps, several tables with laminate tops and numerous blue plastic chairs, it was dispiriting, dank and cold. It also had a door which led directly to that other dim room in which Evgeny, Jim and his crew were monitoring and recording events with great interest. As Harry stopped in the entry Calum glanced up from his screen and announced,

"The number she gave is registered to an Edward Flueling, age 41."

His voice dried up as he saw the expression on the older man's face. Disgust mingled with anger was clearly bubbling away below the cold determination for justice and the dark eyes were bleak as he said,

"Go and find whatever it is that she has planted for us. We need to keep her convinced that we're still dancing to her tune."

Hearing the iron in the quiet voice Dimitri glanced first at Erin and then Harry, murmured,

"I'll get an address," and began to walk away.

Erin followed, throwing Calum a request to pass on everything he could while they were _en route_ and the pair disappeared through the outer door. Once they were gone, Harry walked forward to join Ruth, who had been quietly watching him ever since he had appeared beyond the doorway. Scanning his face, all she saw was the anger, disgust and burning coldness and a small part of her rejoiced. _That wasn't true,_ she silently admitted, _it was quite a large part that was rejoicing._ Absently twisting the pen she was holding between her fingers, she asked,

"Can we trust Elena? About any of this?"

His response was flat.

"We can trust her. She's enjoying herself too much." Finally looking directly at her she saw in the pitiless depths of his eyes the glowing embers of a desire that would only be slaked by one thing. Revenge. "We need to speak to the Home Secretary."

Without a further word she pulled her phone out and called the number. In his office, Towers was on an internal call when his mobile began vibrating. Seeing Ruth's name displayed he quickly rid himself of the other call and picked up the incoming one, absently noting that it was reading 12:22. It had been well over an hour since she had left the office, picked up by her former colleagues to extract the Russian minister's wife.

"Ruth, where the hell are you? I—"

"Home Secretary."

Hearing Harry's voice instead of his security advisor's Towers rolled his eyes and heaved a long-suffering sigh.

"Jesus wept, Harry, what are you playing at?" The words that came back to him down the line sent a chill through him, despite the fact that it was exactly what he was expecting.

"Elena Gavrik has intelligence that there is a major attack planned on London for today." The older man's voice was as dry as dust and almost as old as time as Towers sagged against his desk and stared absently at the stained-glass windows of his office, heart sinking at the confirmation he hadn't wanted to hear.

"The bloody aeroplane, I suppose," he muttered, more to himself than Harry. "What sort of attack, exactly?"

"We're following up leads now—"

"We don't even know what the bloody thing is?" His frustration was obvious, back in the bunker, so Harry thought he'd better pour some soothing oil for his political master.

"Not exactly, yet, but everything on that aircraft is under control by the FSB. We have to trust them to look after their end while we look after ours, which we are doing. We can't afford to do otherwise or the deal you just signed is worthless."

The silence from the other end spoke volumes but eventually the politician sighed again before responding,

"God, you're such a little ray of sunshine aren't you, Harry. Very well. Do whatever you need to and let me know how I can help. How long have we got?"

Checking his watch the older man said, quietly,

"About an hour. At the most."

"Christ. Alright, I'll let you get on with it."

He hung up and Harry handed the phone back to Ruth as he strode out, saying without looking back,

"I want you in here with me."

The woman said nothing but scurried out after him, leaving Calum to watch the pair of them and wonder what exactly Harry was planning next. Whatever it was, he wouldn't care to be in Elena Gavrik's shoes right now.

Aboard the jet Pavel Zykov switched to the flight tracker again and noted their position over Germany. It was time. Despite his conviction that this was the right thing to do he had never actually considered the reality that this may well be a suicide mission but that was what had been taking over his thoughts for the past half an hour and his autonomous nervous system was making him start to sweat. No matter: if that was his fate then so be it, he would die a hero, attempting to save his motherland from the creeping rot of Western decadence and corruption. Glancing up to check the toilet lights and noting they were green, he leaned into the aisle and looked back: it was empty. It was time.

Picking up the briefcase, he quietly made his way forward to the toilets at the back of the First Class cabin, closing the curtain behind him and locking himself into the starboard cubicle. Laying the bag flat, he popped the locks and lifted the lid. In the galley, Anna Kurgapkina observed his actions impassively, absently reaching up a hand to smooth down her already immaculate hair. They weren't worried, as they already knew it was a military jammer that he was carrying, not a bomb: Inna Makarova had passed Anna's male colleague, Major Boris Kandinski, a thumb drive containing the digital filming of the x-ray results as he had passed through her security point and the images had been interrogated at depth by his co-passenger, their technical expert, seconded at short notice from the Army's hush-hush R&D corps, the ash-blonde Colonel Tamara Fokina, who had been delighted to identify the object instantly as a prototype jamming device she had worked on that had been stolen from the Army in 2009. In addition to that, Kurgapkina had gone straight to Fokina after handling the briefcase and had her hands scanned for explosives residue with no result. Nonetheless, she would need to inform her colleagues. It looked like it was time.


	19. Chapter 19

**19. MoD Facility. 12:35 hours.**

Elena was sitting on one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs at the old light table, motionless and expressionless, when Harry and Ruth returned. She had been considering the success of the operation so far and pondering on the results of the next hour when the Englishman had walked in, the nonentity who was his faithful little shadow trotting along behind. _Where she belonged. _ _Another pawn to be played_. Looking up, she asked,

"Have you found him?" Harry looked back at Ruth as she closed the door, apparently ignoring the question for the moment. _Of course they hadn't. _"The go-between."

He walked forward, keeping his expression neutral to lull her into a false sense of still maintaining control.

"We have an address. My team are on their way. Elena, we need to know everything." Aware that Sasha was one of the observers he decided it was time to start testing her to see how much she would admit to in front of him. Putting on an empathic tone he continued, "You've been protecting the person behind the attacks on the partnership and I understand why but it has to stop. Now." Allowing some grimness to creep into his voice he shook his head. "It wasn't Jim, was it?" She was staring up at him with a faint, superior smile. _No doubt he was expecting her to blame Ilya. It would be entertaining to disabuse him of that notion with the truth_. What came next he wasn't expecting.

"It was me, Harry." The disbelief on his face pleased her, but it wasn't for the reason she thought. He knew perfectly well that she was behind it. He just didn't think she would admit it in front of her son. She wasn't finished, though. "Ilya wants this deal, he always has." By the doorway Ruth listened and watched silently, her disgust growing with every word and hardening her features. Flicking a glance at Harry she saw that he was listening intently, despite the veneer of surprise but clearly the Russian woman was so wrapped in her superiority that she was seeing none of it. Finishing, indifferently, she added, "I know the details of the attacks because I ordered them."

It was the indifference that finally got to the man. How had he not seen this cold, calculating, inhuman side of her before? _His own youthful arrogance and testosterone again._ It occurred to him that at the time he had been about the age that Sasha was now and he wondered, briefly and with regret, what that young man was feeling, seeing everything he thought he knew about his mother torn to shreds and discarded like so much garbage.

Outside the window, the answer to that thought was a mixture of total incomprehension and rising fury. He could not reconcile what he was hearing with whom he was hearing it from and he could feel the buzzing in his brain start up again as he struggled to control his increasingly erratic impulses. The Englishman – _his father _– was looking as shocked as he was feeling and asked the exact question that he was thinking.

"How, why?"

Her response was delivered with a supercilious, slightly pitying expression that made him itch to deliver his final blow now but he controlled the impulse: it was too early. They wanted everything they could get from this woman to implicate her political masters so he would continue to dole out the rope until he was ready hang her. Not the other way around, as she was, very obviously, fondly imagining.

"Have you ever told anyone the truth about how you recruited me?"

That stopped him for a moment. _Did she actually know? If so, how much, exactly?_ She had surprised him but, thirty years after the event and on top of what he had learned in the past twenty-four hours he was past caring. Instead, he would give her the performance she was clearly expecting to see.

"You know?" His dismay was delicately portrayed and entirely believable, especially to the one who was expecting it. The self-satisfaction that Elena was oozing was reflected in her hypnotic, snake-like gaze and Ruth, still staring at her, felt a sudden surge of sympathy for Harry. Although she knew her former boss was a consummate actor when he wanted to be – she had never forgotten the EERIE exercise – she still wondered how much truth there was in what he was currently portraying. Or she would have wondered if she hadn't caught that intense, calculating look a little earlier. Below the surface of seething emotion he was still implacably cold, intent on Elena's destruction and that of RussiaFirst.

"Yes."

Pleased at the creeping shame she had induced in the man, Elena turned her attention to the woman, who stared back at her with evident puzzlement. Not, as might be thought, because of the subject under discussion but instead wondering exactly where Elena was heading with it.

"I can see from your face he never told you. Too ashamed."

_Time to ramp up the acting. _So thinking, Harry pulled out the chair opposite her and sat down, dropping his head to rest on his hand, appearing totally deflated and murmuring a deadened agreement. He didn't get anything further out, though, as Ruth's voice, harsh, cut through an atmosphere that was getting more cloying by the moment.

"What has this got to do with the attack, Elena?"

The faint smile on the Russian's face didn't falter. If anything she seemed pleased with the question and the opening it presented.

"Harry and I were in love. At least we thought we were." _Had she even thought so back then? Or had it all been part of the performance? _With Tallulah's diagnosis and what he had just seen, it was highly unlikely that she had ever had any genuine feelings for anyone, with the possible, and it was only a possible, exception of her son. It was interesting, though, that unlike him she seemed to have realised that he had been kidding himself at the time. She still had her intent gaze focussed on Ruth but in her peripheral vision saw the man now drop his forehead into his hand. _Good. That emotional weakness she had identified in Berlin had now reached its zenith and he was neutralised but she wasn't finished crushing him yet._ "But Harry had to choose between being a good man or a good spy. My parents were killed in a car accident but Harry and Jim forged a KGB case file showing they had been wrongly arrested. Tortured. Murdered. He used that lie to turn me." The memory was apparently overwhelming as her tone began to become more distressed. Listening to the performance with a critical ear, Harry dropped his hand but remained staring at the ground, looking deeply ashamed to cover his interest and not distract her. She did know a part of the genuine story behind her parents' demise, then, but not all of it… They were getting very close to the truth being revealed and he didn't want to put her off her stride now so he would keep his mouth shut for the time being. She was finished anyway – they might as well get everything they could from her.

Elsewhere, Sasha was listening equally intently but unable to comprehend any of it, his heart rate accelerating with every word she said. Completely the opposite, Jim Coaver was impassively watching and listening _via _the dirty window, concealed cameras and microphones, appreciating his old friend's nuanced performance while remembering those days. Like Harry, he was no longer surprised that she had picked what they were up to but that had been the beauty of the case file: it had actually been far closer to the truth than Elena had realised, then or, apparently, now. Platon and Natalia Struchkov had indeed died in a car accident but the accident had been manufactured after they had spent several days as guests in the Lubyanka where they had been subjected to normal KGB interrogation techniques, most of which would now be regarded as torture. He and Harry had just omitted anything to do with the execution-as-accident, replacing it with a more traditional execution-by-firing squad. The irony of it was that Struchkov and his wife had been vocal opponents of Communism and equally vocal supporters of the Hungarian Uprising and had been rapidly gaining influence among the young of Moscow so they had needed to be stopped. Now, the Nationalist daughter of the Nationalist couple who had died to promote democracy had perverted the meaning of the Nationalism and was intent on destroying the fledgling Russian democracy so he was going to gain great personal satisfaction from bringing her to heel.

Evgeny Kuzin was also impassive but for different reasons. He cared nothing for ancient history or the woman's loathsome justifications. He cared even less that her profile at home was almost as high as that of her husband and that the results of today would cause a sensation throughout Russia if the truth ever got out. She and her party were damaging the Motherland and for that he would have no compunction in doing whatever was necessary to stop them. Russia had enough problems as it was. It didn't need idiots like Elena Gavrik making things worse.

Tallulah Zanon was also watching, with the objective, dispassionate eye of the scientist that she was. What she saw was fascinating. She had dealt with many sociopaths and psychopaths in her time but Elena Gavrik was the most complete example she had ever come across. The woman would have ticked almost every box on the Hare PCL-R checklist for identifying a psychopath and she had built up such a strong persona to cover her impulses that she appeared to believe every part of it herself. It had probably started when she was a child, some sort of protection from the pain of being an orphan, and Tallulah doubted whether the other woman could now separate the act from her real self although, even if she could, she wouldn't care about the differences. It wasn't in her nature: her condition meant she was incapable of feeling anything much that would fit a normal human. She also had such a strong grip on the persona it was unlikely that she had much contact with reality as defined by society at large any more. Truly fascinating.

Unaware of the scrutiny of so many sets of eyes, Elena was enjoying the discomfiture of her former asset. For so long she had had to pretend to be the follower; now, with the tables turned, she couldn't believe how good it felt to be the leader.

"He asked me to spy on my country, my husband, to risk my life every day, to risk the safety of his own son. It was the making of him." Her derision in the last sentence was impossible to miss, as was the pity on her face. Harry was still staring down with evident self-loathing while wondering where exactly she was going. He may have thought he was asking her to pass on information at the time – _before_ he knew anything about Sasha – but they all knew better than that now. Irrespective of that, she was over-rating her importance to his career. She was just one of many, many assets, and honey-traps, he had used over the years and there had been other operations that had been of far more value. Satisfied with where she had put him, Elena glanced back at Ruth and what she asked answered his question . "Do you see him differently now?" She was out to drive a final wedge between him and Ruth. As if it wasn't already too late…

Ruth recognised the game plan as well but, with her new resolve, she wasn't about to partake so, expressionless on the surface but feeling nothing but an increasing affection for the man sitting at the table, doing a brilliant job of appearing totally devastated, she took her time gazing at him before looking back up at the Russian and nodded slightly.

"Yes." They stared at each other, Elena expecting the younger woman to fold under her scrutiny but it didn't happen. Instead, the next words left her initially satisfied but then, as she thought about them, more and more puzzled. "I see that he's given more than I thought possible." As she returned her attention to Harry, Elena realised that there was more than one meaning to that statement and her smile slipped, ever so slightly, as she also realised that she wasn't sure which one Ruth had meant. The foundations of her control had suddenly trembled and she was no longer as certain of her success as she had been a moment before.

In the back room, Calum had been partly monitoring the events in the map room while feverishly continuing to track down Flueling's address. Just as Ruth spoke his computer beeped with a match and he said quietly,

"Got it. Pelham Road, Barnet. Unit 18."

On comms in the car Dimitri replied crisply,

"We'll be there in 12 minutes."

"Ten," Erin interjected, glancing at her passenger for a moment before flooring the accelerator.

Aboard Russian Air Flight 474, Anna Kurgapkina was still in the galley, watching the door to the lavatory. Zykov had been in there for some minutes now so presumably he was setting up the jammer, although she would have thought it would not have taken this long. Checking around to make sure the area was clear, she walked over and listened at the door. Inside, the man had, uncharacteristically, been struck by nerves as he had opened the lid of the briefcase and stared at the contents. They were nothing impressive, just a metal box with two cylindrical canisters on top on the left hand side, the inner one shorter and with pointed ends; to the right was a screen with a circular radar-like display. He contemplated the screen for a while, considering what he was about to do and what the outcome would be. If everything went as planned there was a strong possibility that he would die when the jet was shot down; if it didn't there was a good chance that he would end up dead anyway, either in prison or at the hands of Levrov. It was a sobering thought but he comforted himself with the thought that it had to be done or his country was going to become as weak and corrupt as the West and, like them, prey to being overwhelmed by Islam, Africans and Asians, destroying the purity of his own ancient culture.

With a final lick of his dry lips he pressed the button above the screen to activate the jammer and the green sweep of the radar, centred on the position of the Ilyushin, began to circle over the underlying outline of the European continent. Adjacent to the screen two lines of red digital numbers read off the range of the jammer and the jamming frequency. All appeared to be in order so he gazed, unseeing, at the wall in front of him, considering the fact that the plane was now flying blind. The die was cast.

Outside, Kurgapkina turned away from the door and walked away, heading for the area where her colleagues were seated. She would update them, warn the flight crew and then they would act to terminate the threat: once they had confirmed that Zykov had activated the jammer, that would be both justification and proof to take the man down. Then all that needed to be done was inform both Kuzin in London and their Department Head in Moscow and their job would be finished.

In Essex Calum noticed the car on one of the external cameras as soon as it began nosing its way through the dense green bushes towards the gate at the other end of the enclosure. Ilya Gavrik. He tapped a quick message to Jim and Evgeny – voice comms were disbarred at the moment on the off-chance that Sasha or Elena might hear something and realise what was going on – then closed the lid of the laptop and dashed out, ignoring the young Russian as he made for the door of the map room.

Inside, Harry heard it open and got up from his chair to join the younger man. Calum, surprised by what he saw on the other man's face, was short and to the point.

"Gavrik's here."

He had been so immersed in the performance on the computer screen that he had forgotten the tales he had heard about his boss' acting ability so when he had been faced not with the acutely ashamed man he had been expecting but with something akin to blazing aliveness and a pair of dark eyes containing that inimical, diamond-bright glitter which boded ill for RussiaFirst it had been a shock. It had been easy enough to read the man's next thought, though. _Good. Time to increase the pressure. _Harry nodded curtly.

"Let him in." He had more than had his fill of listening to Elena's self-serving performance. It was time to get back to extracting something useful from her. Watching the shame and guilt dropping back over the older man's face before he turned away had put Calum, irresistibly, in mind of some of the shape-shifters that appeared in the sci-fi books and movies that were one of his secret indulgences but it also made him wonder just how much of what they saw on the Grid was also an act…

As Harry walked back to this stranger whom he thought he had once known their earlier conversation came back to him. Deliberately standing just a little too close he stood over her and asked softly, puzzled but genuinely curious, "How did you find out I'd lied to you?"

At the main door, Calum stood back to let a furious Ilya Gavrik walk in. The man barely flicked him a glance as he strode forward to join Sasha at the window, taking in Harry looming over Elena with Ruth apparently guarding the door inside the map room. The sight unsettled him and he asked, harshly,

"Sasha, what's happening?"

His son looked at him, blue eyes desperate, and shook his head.

"I don't know."

It was only the truth. Everything he had just heard was all too much for him to process so he was ignoring the essential truth of it in favour of remaining blinkered when it came to his mother. They both looked back through the window where Harry was still looming over Elena and she was still gazing up at him, smiling.

"I didn't find out. I always knew." _Somehow, that made sense._ Her next words confirmed that old joke of Jim's, the one they had recently decided was probably true. "I was a spy before you met me. You weren't recruiting me. I was recruiting you." First disbelief and then horror washed over his face as she spoke, as though he was only just understanding the truth as he turned away from her towards Ruth but she continued to talk, a patronising note returning to her tone. "Poor, sweet Harry. I was recruited by a group of men in the KGB who handled unofficial operations. They knew that you were planning to turn me. So they asked me to sleep with you." Ilya and Sasha looked aghast and disbelieving as she spoke while all Harry heard was that Levrov and Zykov already knew what he was planning. _How?_ Jim just listened and nodded, unhappy but unsurprised that his ancient suspicions were being proven correct. If only one of them had realised back then… "To pretend to be your loyal agent, your lover. That part was not hard." Harry snorted internally. _No, it wasn't hard because it's all part of your condition. You spend your life pretending you understand emotions when you don't._ Tallulah was thinking exactly the same thing as the other woman continued on. "The night you told me the lie about my parents, my handlers had warned me what to expect." Several sets of ears pricked up at that, all with that same question: _how did they know? _She was enjoying herself too much now to be lying so how did they know? Jim belatedly registered what she had said before, about her handlers knowing of the plan to turn her; combined with the warning, he began to desperately run through everyone he could remember from Berlin at the time who might have been a leak. Or a mole. Harry, on the contrary, suddenly went cold. He knew who it was. Laughing grey-green eyes under a sleek, dark bob, a trim figure always dressed in sober suits: Connie James. It had to have been Connie. She had been on secondment to Six in Germany at the time, had been there before he arrived and had returned to London in 1982. All the time in Berlin, and she had been _such_ a help in digging up the information on the Struchkovs... Knowing what he knew now, it had to have been Connie– Elena was still talking, he would have to leave that puzzle for the moment. "I was desperate for you not to tell me. My feelings for you were real. I wanted you to prove everyone wrong. For a moment I wanted to tell you the truth – I tried to call but you weren't there. From that moment on I was a double agent." She suddenly stood up, as though trying to distance herself from him, overwhelmed by the memories. Her final words were bitter. "They were right. They were the only ones I could trust."

Her delivery was stilted, confirming to Harry that she was both talking about things she had no concept of while at the same time was so confident of herself and her control over the situation that she no longer cared how she appeared. Or that the motive she had had for the act she had been putting on for the last weeks no longer mattered. Whatever the case, her words didn't convince any of the listeners one iota. He wondered who the show was really for: himself or Sasha? Was she was trying to convince Sasha that, somehow, it was all Harry's fault? Whether the young man chose to believe it or not he himself wasn't about to buy it but he would continue to play his defined role, keeping her on the hook.

"That's impossible." The denial was clear in his face and eyes and she was hard pressed to suppress her triumph at his disbelief. "You gave me good intel for years."

"Some. To gain your confidence." This revelation of the truth was even more enjoyable than she had thought it would be so she continued, as he abruptly turned away, staring at the window behind which he knew Jim was watching. Coaver saw the look and knew exactly what it meant. She was nicely digging herself ever deeper, for all it was dispiriting to hear how professionally she had reeled the pair of them in, and it was going to give them immense pleasure when they finally tightened the noose around her elegant neck. "The long term plan was to use you to channel disinformation to the West and eventually to turn you." At that he spun around to glare at her, the disgust on his face real, while Ruth suppressed an indrawn hiss of breath at the woman's audacity: she had picked the wrong man if that's what she thought and it clearly showed how little she understood him. That realisation was strangely gratifying, as were the next words. "But you were too decent. You burned me. So then I was to pretend to defect, become a plant, but Jim Coaver stopped you."

_'__**Pretend **__to defect'?_ That comment rocked the men momentarily, both understanding the implication immediately and both horrified that she would sink to such depravity that she would drag a four year old child away from everything and everyone he had ever known to further her own political ends. It was bad enough if she had been genuine about her reasons to defect but to _pretend_? What sort of creature was she? The Englishman was repulsed, as was the American but the latter also thought _And how exactly did she know it was me who had stopped him?_ _The same leak? _Another question to be dealt with later, Coaver thought as he watched Ruth suddenly move from her position near the door. The petite brunette had decided it was time to start applying pressure from another direction, one that they knew was present but Elena did not. Looking questioningly at the Russian she asked, with a slight frown,

"And Ilya knew all this?"

Elena's response was instant, dismissive.

"He knew nothing." Outside, Sasha glanced at Ilya who was standing, motionless and expressionless, listening with mounting incredulity, then back into the room as his mother continued to talk. "I was recruited two weeks after we were married. He was never told." Both Jim and Harry doubted that: with the information they had uncovered she would never have needed to be 'recruited'. All Levrov needed to do was ask and that had probably happened long beforehand. In their current cynical frame of mind both men wondered for an instant if she had been ordered to recruit Ilya as well... It wouldn't surprise them, not now. For Ilya himself those words, to the contrary, simultaneously stunned him, broke his heart and made him blaze in a deadly, white hot anger. Not a man given to emotions or to opening himself to other people, Elena had been the one exception to that rule, even including Sasha, and he had been so enthralled by her that he had moved heaven and earth to protect her when she was taken in Leningrad and had forgiven her for her lapse in judgement with Harry Pearce. And now here she was, calmly admitting that not only he had been even more of a dupe that either Pearce or Coaver but that _she had been prepared to remove __**his **__son to use in __**her**__ political game_. Presumably she was telling the truth: she did not know he was there, after all. He was so gutted and so furious that he could barely breathe but, with that son standing next to him, he would not show it. Instead, forty years of training came into play and he retained a face like a mask as Harry spoke the words that he was thinking.

"Ilya did know." For the first time Elena's heart nearly stopped in shock. Whatever she was expecting it hadn't been that. Her eyes snapped back to the blond Englishman and she saw that he was speaking the truth; as well as the shock she also felt the stirrings of genuine fear. If Ilya _knew…_ On the other side of the window Sasha again turned towards his father but the older man might as well have been carved from granite. "He found out you'd been spying for me but he forgave you." The words came softly, remorselessly as the woman finally registered uncertainty. "He kept quiet for the sake of your family."

_Well, Ilya Andreivitch wasn't here so he need never know of her confession._ She assimilated the thought and the words and continued her unnerving gaze, finally saying,

"He is a good man." They stared at each other, wordless, until she smiled, patronising again, as she brought out the one subject that had always been guaranteed to work but this time would be the last. Sasha had served his purpose and it was time to bring this part of the game to an end. "Ask me, Harry. Be brave." It would be mildly amusing to watch him sweat and then shatter when she revealed the truth.

_God, how he despised her. _ He could just about find, intellectually, some reason for everything else she had done but not this. Not using your own son at all, let alone being blatant enough to do it in front of the boy. Knowing the answer anyway, he looked over towards where he knew Sasha was watching and then back again.

"Is Sasha my son?"

She also glanced slowly over at mirrored windows. _He would understand, and forgive her. He was her son, after all. _Beyond the mirrored façade both men waited with baited breath, Sasha for her to confirm what he had read and Ilya reeling from yet another blow. _If that was the truth— no, it couldn't be_. The boy had been eerily reminiscent of Ilya himself as a child and was a physical replica of his grandfather now that he was grown. His abhorrence equalled that of Harry's as he tried, and failed, to compute how she had been able to use Sasha so. Finally she answered with what had always been the truth.

"No. He is Ilya's." _If he had ever really looked at her son without his rose-tinted glasses he would have seen that, at any time over the past three decades. _It pleased her that Harry looked both infuriated and disgusted. _That news should have thrown him so much that he would be ineffective for whatever else he was planning and she could wrap this thing up. There was not so long to go, now, before the final act was instigated. _

Sasha couldn't believe what he was hearing. _The American had got it wrong. Whatever that certificate was, it wasn't real. Harry Pearce was NOT his father. _The euphoric relief temporarily made him forget everything else that had just been said and he looked around at Ilya, expecting some sign of similar feelings but the older man was still motionless, staring at Elena, eyes opaque and unreadable.

For Harry, her words were the final release. Until she said it, there had remained the tiniest grain of doubt or, perhaps, hope, unacknowledged but there, nonetheless. Now it was said, that tiny grain was crushed. He knew she was telling the truth in any case because Jim had already told him the reason why and, he could at last admit to himself, the reason he had first spotted Sasha tailing him that day on his walk to the old dead-drop in the library was because the young man had looked so much like Ilya had at much the same age. Walking slowly towards her he allowed his lip to curl and the distaste he felt ooze from every pore as he spelled it out for Ilya's benefit.

"It was a lie, designed to bond me to you, to compromise me. You let me believe for almost thirty years that he was my son." A thin veneer of distress, a faint echo of what he had genuinely felt the day before, was allowed to settle over him like a veil, muting the previous emotions. Elena surreptitiously glanced at her watch; it was one o'clock and, very soon, all of this would not matter, but he had touched a raw nerve. Suddenly turning on him, she spat, infuriated, for once allowing that deeply buried rage at becoming an orphan when still a baby, that same rage that she almost never acknowledged but had driven her all her life, its full expression,

"What about your lie? You told me my parents were tortured, died in fear and pain, shot in the head like dogs." _How had he dared? At least it proved to me who you really were in the process. From then on you had no hope. _As quickly as it appeared the fury suddenly dissipated and she smiled again, confident in her superiority and control of the situation. "The only difference is that my lie was believed."

He needed a breather. That last reaction, more than anything else, proved the woman was unstable and he had to get a little space for a moment, to think. Walking towards the dividing grate Harry threw another glance at the window into the rooms beyond before leaning against the cold metal, ostensibly devastated.

Dimitri was quietly hanging on as Erin threw the vehicle through the traffic at break-neck speed, incurring the wrath of every other road user around her but, so far, avoiding the Plods. Working the gears as she shot through a gap between a car and a small van she called out,

"Cal, what's our ETA?"

"Four minutes," was the prompt response, followed by a more muttered, "ignoring the traffic lights."

She glanced at her passenger and grinned before tramping on the brake and then accelerating through and out of a corner, on the last leg of their wild goose chase.

The jammer had locked onto all the aircraft's currently tuned frequencies and had been quietly doing its job, without raising any suspicion in the cockpit, for long enough now that Zykov could be confident of returning to his seat. Snapping the lid shut he was startled by a sudden gentle tapping on the door.

"Sir? Is everything okay?" Anna Kurgapkina asked quietly, her eyes fixed on the woman in the Chanel suit, Varvara Maximova, who was flattened back against the bulkhead to her left. To her right, Boris Kandinski, the grey-haired man, had removed his dark jacket and was also poised for action, while Tamara Fokina was waiting quietly in the galley for her opportunity to deal with the jammer. Anna tapped again and added politely, "We will be landing soon. Sir?"

Zykov was breathing hard inside the tiny room as the hostie was speaking. She was getting too nosy for her own good and he didn't trust her so he was going to have to do something about her. She, like everyone else on board, was dead anyway, they just didn't know it yet. Without warning he opened the door to see her turning away so he reacted instantly, clapping his right hand over her mouth and pulling her back into the toilet as she gave a muffled shriek. That much was expected; what wasn't was the woman simultaneously ramming her elbow back into his _solar plexus_, stamping her foot down on his instep and biting his hand so hard it drew blood. Automatically letting her go while he gasped for breath Zykov barely registered Kandinski pushing the woman out of the way and then swinging a vicious right hook that connected cleanly with his temple, all but knocking him out for a moment. Coming to again, he was aware of the man and the hostess wrestling him upright, preparing to cuff him, and began to struggle but was stopped by a circle of cold steel being pressed to the centre of his forehead. He looked up and straight into the steady, dark eyes of Maximova as she very deliberately clicked off the safety catch of her gun. Absently noting the weapon was standard FSB issue he realised it was all over.

A further movement outside caught his eye as an ash-blonde woman in her forties appeared behind Maximova and Kandinski. A passenger, wondering what the ruckus was about? No. Clearly not. The hostess was handing his briefcase over to the woman but why?

"The jammer, Colonel."

"Thank you, Lieutenant. This won't take long."

He suddenly realised that it wasn't all over, that they were going to try to short-circuit the jammer and laughed weakly. He had locked it on with almost irreversible codes.

"You cannot stop this. Only I have the codes."

The woman didn't even look across at him as she placed the case on one of the tiny work surfaces and opened the lid. Instead, a satisfied smile curved her lips for a moment as she reached into a pocket to retrieve a keyring from which several thumb drives swung.

"Now there you are wrong, young man." Deftly inserting one of the drives into a port next to the number display she waited a moment before her smile broadened as a command box popped up on the radar screen and a series of disconnected letters and numbers began streaming across it. "It's your bad luck that I was intimately involved in the development of the software that runs this machine, among others." The jammer pinged and powered down, after which Fokina withdrew the drive and snapped the case closed again. "It really is ridiculously easy to shut down if you have the right technology." Finally looking over at the group she added, "Thank you for returning this to us, Colonel Maximova, Major Kandinski. We were a little concerned when it went missing two years ago as it was still somewhat – experimental, shall we say. We suspected Captain Zykov, or someone in his unit, but could never prove it. Until now." Her gaze focussed on Zykov. "You had better pray that the British police and security services keep you in prison for a very long time, Captain, because, when you come back to Moscow, you will be answering to us."


	20. Chapter 20

**20. MoD Facility. 13:00 hours.**

"So why tell us about this attack?"

Ruth's voice, cutting through the tension like a knife, caught Elena's attention. _Ah, the little drab. So seething with emotion yet so repressed and so scared of what she felt…_

"That's it, Ruth. Back to the matter in hand." She tilted her head to one side, smiling condescendingly. "Your speciality: analysis, intelligence. But not so good with people." The words were meant to sting but, judging by the icy, unmoving stare it hadn't quite worked. Evershed was proving more difficult to deal with than Elena would have expected and it was reducing her enjoyment of toying with her but it didn't matter, she would get her out of the room. "I would like some water, please."

The haughty words were clearly an order but Ruth was damned if she was going to take it. This bloody Russian, who was obviously every inch the psychopath that Tallulah had diagnosed, was about to learn what resistance was like. Without blinking and openly displaying her lack of any shred of empathy she replied,

"Maybe later," and was rewarded with the veriest flicker of something in those tawny eyes. That had rocked her slightly, which made it Ruth:2, Elena:0 for today's competition. Pressing the advantage the English woman added, "First tell us everything you know about this attack. Who ordered it?"

Harry and Jim, still gazing sightlessly at each other through the grate and the darkened, mirrored window, both breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the woman for broaching the subject while Kuzin's hearing sharpened with interest. As did Ilya Gavrik's, although he felt a creeping chill that might have been tendrils of an unfamiliar fear at what was about to be revealed. Back in control himself, he risked a glance at his son to see he had gone white, about to either explode or collapse, but there was no time for dealing with that. Elena was speaking again, her contempt for all of them blatant.

"The group who recruited me have grown over the years." Deciding it was time to return to the stage Harry turned back towards the two women. "They are not just intelligence officers now, they are business people, politicians, united by patriotism, nationalism you would call it." Starting to walk back to them, Harry suddenly remembered Ilya and Sasha and wondered briefly what both men were thinking. Although she didn't know her husband was outside, watching and listening, she obviously couldn't care less about what she was revealing to her son. "They believe Russia is becoming too weak. They could not allow a partnership between our two countries, it humiliates Russia. I agree with them." The hovering smile broadened, slowly and with supreme satisfaction. "I have first-hand experience of western hypocrisy."

Ilya was indeed listening, his initial incredulity and anger gradually turning to a darkly furious disgust. He had walked into this place determined to extract his family from the clutches of MI5 but that plan had soon descended into nightmare as he listened to this creature who had been his wife espousing information she should have known nothing about along with an unshakeable faith in everything he despised, everything _she knew _he despised. It beggared belief. Glancing over at his son he saw the young man almost chewing at his fist and the raw anguish in that action confirmed what his heart and gut was telling him. Sasha clearly knew more than he was admitting and appeared to believe everything she was saying. So she was guilty. Of everything she had said and probably more. Harry and the American had been taken in but he himself had not only suffered the same fate but had been wilfully blind as well. She had always been difficult but the warning signs had been there all along and he had chosen to ignore them. Now, someone was about to pay. Severely shaken, Gavrik senior looked back into the room in time to see Harry walk past Elena, giving her the sort of death stare that Ilya himself would quite like to deliver.

"They would rather open conflict than this deal." The woman's voice was rich with contempt as she explained. "So they launch an attack so destructive the partnership is irrelevant." Devastated and sickened at what he was hearing, Ilya suddenly, brutally, saw it all. Levrov and his accursed political party. That nasty, low-life Soviet assassin who had been in his wife's life since her childhood and had been attempting to wreak havoc, one way or the other, on the fledgling democracy ever since the collapse of his communist masters, particularly since the ascension of Ilya's own former protégée to the highest position in the land. She was working with RussiaFirst, against the government, against Putin, against he himself. His eyes filmed over with tears for the briefest of instants until that iron control of rationality reasserted itself and he went cold, everything he had felt for the woman finally, irretrievably dying. She had used him but, unforgivably, she had also used Sasha for a political aim that was, in reality, nothing more than a personal vendetta based on an ancient enmity. Not an overtly emotional man, Ilya nonetheless had deeply entrenched beliefs in the protection of family and Elena had been playing on that for almost forty years. No more. It would end, today. Her actions against Sasha, if nothing else, demanded justice and, one way or the other, he would see that justice delivered.

In the quiet back room Evgeny Kuzin's eyes turned as Arctic as Ilya's heart. If this hadn't been a serious and credible threat it would have all been pathetic. It wasn't the first time he had dealt with extremists of one ilk or another but it was probably the first time he had dealt with them at such an elevated level. She hadn't named them but what she had said was more than enough, along with the information supplied by his English and American counterparts, to begin the destruction of RussiaFirst. As though reading his thoughts his phone vibrated and he answered it quietly, hearing the voice of Varvara Maximova. She was brief and to the point; when she terminated the call he leaned over D'wane and tapped out a message for Calum to pass on to Harry. Zykov had been carrying a jammer, blocking communications to and from the plane but he and the jammer had now been neutralised and the plane was safe.

As he typed, Harry asked quietly, almost gently and out of genuine curiosity,

"You've killed people already, why the sudden attack of conscience?"

Her response made nearly every single listener choke on the gall of it.

"I will not sacrifice innocent lives. I am not a terrorist." Tallulah Zanon was the exception. Her right eyebrow climbed a millimetre or two but otherwise she was not surprised. Elena appeared, and probably actually did, believe what she was saying. It was all part of her condition, the fantasy world that she had created since childhood with her pathological lying and grandiose sense of self, along with her manipulation and the feigned emotions (all she would be capable of) that were designed, always, to serve her ulterior motive. Tallulah also wondered how Ilya and Sasha were faring. Both men would, more likely than not, be permanently damaged by today's revelations because, whatever else either of them were, neither of them shared Elena Platonovna's psychiatric condition. Their emotions were real and, like Harry, they would be suffering the consequences. Silently sighing she tuned into what the other woman was saying. "We all have a line we can't cross, don't we, Harry?. I am at mine."

Harry presumed that she was referring to the failed extraction – her scathing earlier comment that he had burned her because he was too decent echoed in his mind. He knew that wasn't entirely the truth but she didn't but he was also at the point of believing that she had no idea of what truth was, anyway. Which meant that she would understand nothing of what lines in the sand actually meant; like everything else she had ever, or would ever say, what was coming out of her mouth now was just another lie, utilised to get her own way. It was something they were all going to have to bear in mind for however much longer this farce went on.

In the Audi, Dimitri and Erin had arrived at the address, which turned out to be a series of older workshops around a courtyard scattered with the generic industrial detritus of such places. The man was out of the vehicle as soon as it stopped, dashing past piles of pallets and containers covered in blue tarpaulins to the door of the unit they were interested in. The chain and padlock had been broken. Erin had joined him by this stage and he murmured to her,

"Forced entry."

She nodded, barely perceptibly.

"We're going in."

Dimitri cocked his pistol and pushed the door open. Both rushed in with their weapons drawn and at the ready to find a room full of machinery and plastic wrapped pallets of cardboard cartons and boxes. Slowly, methodically, they began to quarter the area, riffling through paper work, opening boxes and searching every space for potential clues. It didn't take long to find the body slumped against the wall in an area at the back that had clearly been used as a make-shift office. Edward Flueling, presumably, now with a bullet in the head and his blood and brains all over the wall. The pair glanced at each other and holstered the guns before Dimitri made a show of checking for the pulse he knew wouldn't be there.

"He's not been dead long." Turning away he observed the room again and mused, "We've got comms equipment and a body..."

Before Erin could respond her phone rang.

"Ruth."

"Are you at the scene?" The older woman had stepped out of the suffocating tension in the map room for a moment to clear her mind of Elena's poison and, without really knowing why, pulled out her phone to call Erin.

"Yes. What is it?"

"Elena's staging a change of heart but none of us believe it. Have you found whatever it is she's planted for us?"

"Not unless it's the guy with the bullet in his head."

Back in the bunker Ruth leaned momentarily against the door frame. _Christ, this lot really played for keeps. _Another death to be laid at Elena's door. How many more were there going to be before this day finished?

"No. There has to be something else."

Erin rolled her eyes as they kept searching.

"Ruth, do you know what, exactly, we're looking for?"

"Something that's not quite right. Something that's too easy to find, too obvious. Something that doesn't make sense. It could be anything."

The younger brunette was rifling through some paperwork on top of a shredder by this stage and removed the last piece to reveal a document that was only half shredded. The text was almost entirely redacted but the face that went with it was clear and intact. Carefully ripping it out she finally asked,

"How about a face?" She looked at it with interest. Young, shaved head, hard. An equally hard smile formed on her lips. Well, well. It was Zykov. "It's Pavel Zykov, Ruth. And it looks like the shredder jammed."

At her words Dimitri opened the machine and found a screwdriver rammed into the workings, announcing completely without surprise,

"It _was_ jammed. Deliberately."

"That's it, then. At least it confirms the link with RussiaFirst. Send it through. We will see what she has to say about it."

Once the call terminated Erin used the phone to take a snap of the document and forward it on to Calum and then they both turned away and walked out, anxious to get back to the bunker. They wanted to be there for the end of this.

Ruth walked back to stand in the doorway of the map room.

"Harry." The man turned to face her, expressionless, but the woman did not, eyes instead following her former lover with that irritating, self-satisfied smile on her lips. "Erin has found something. We need Elena to look at it."

The group gathered around the laptop that Calum brought into the map room as she had spoken, waiting for him to open up the photo. When he did, Elena gave an elegant gasp and a good impersonation of being shocked.

"My God. Pavel Zykov." Ruth and Harry, careful to avoid giving anything away by glancing at each other, looked at her instead, waiting for more. "Former _spetsnaz_, one of the most dedicated agents they have. Harry, they've been saving him for a suicide mission." There it was. What they were all waiting for. She had just named the connection with RussiaFirst. Those in the room didn't need to exchange glances: they all knew what the others were thinking. In the back room, Coaver, Kuzin, Zanon and Pavlov, watching the live feed, all allowed themselves to swap the briefest of congratulatory looks. Pavlov raised an eyebrow at his superior and Kuzin nodded, briefly. It was nearly time to call out the dogs.

Ilya and Sasha, meanwhile, both felt what was left of their ordered world collapse. Pavel Yurievitch Zykov. That he was an active participant proved beyond any doubt who was involved, with Elena, in this game of cat and mouse although, presumably, Harry and the others were unaware of the implications of what she had just admitted. And both men, knowing Zykov and his history, felt the chill of fear strike them as they finally realised just how serious RussiaFirst were. If they were using him for what she suggested…

Calum, taking the cue, tapped away at the keyboard.

"We've got a file on Zykov. He was sighted at a café this morning in Moscow." A file popped up on his screen with the details of the sighting and then a still taken from CCTV showing the man in question. "At Domodedovo airport."

Ruth followed his lead and stared at him intently.

"Did he board a flight?"

As the young man made a show of checking Harry walked behind Elena, again just a little too close, and said,

"Elena, you know these people." _How much would she reveal?_ "What kind of an attack will it be? Bomb, hijack?"

The woman considered his question, obviously, before settling on what she thought would have the most unsettling effect and was, conveniently, only the truth.

"They want a spectacular. Something that will ruin relations between us for years."

Calum interrupted her, extemporising on the message from Kuzin that he still hadn't had a chance to pass on to Harry.

"He's on board Russian Air flight 474 heading to Heathrow. Air traffic control reports they failed to respond to a routine status request," he looked up to add weight to his words, "two minutes ago."

Harry glanced at him, a faint question in his eyes, before flicking a sideways look at Elena and striding out without another word, followed by Calum and Ruth, leaving Elena in a sudden, echoing silence. As the trio rounded the corner the two men walked straight past the two Russians but Ruth glanced over at them and hesitated. Ilya was standing, as silent and unmoving as a granite pillar, staring through the window at his wife, eyes dark and opaque and a chill passed through the Englishwoman as she wondered what he was thinking. Sasha was the opposite: owning nothing of his father's iron control or his mother's callous indifference, for some strange reason he suddenly reminded her of Nico the day that Mani's men had destroyed his life: lost, frightened, angry and confused. He was entitled to look so, she thought, as his life had also been destroyed just as surely, only by his own mother. Still riven by the guilt she, as the step-mother and unknowing instigator, felt for the younger boy's fate Ruth closed her eyes for a moment as she wondered how on earth Elena could do what she had done. Whatever other crimes could be laid at her door, knowingly and actively destroying Nico's life wasn't one of them. Turning on her heel, she walked back towards the door of the map room.

Calum had been quietly updating Harry on the message from Kuzin as they walked and neither had spared a glance or a thought for either Ilya or Sasha. As soon as they were through to the back-room and out of immediate earshot Harry stopped and asked, as Calum unlocked his main laptop again,

"A communications jammer. Nothing else?"

"Nothing. And now it's shut down." His screen sprang to life and he gave a satisfied smile. "There we go. All back on air."

Harry, thinking aloud, wasn't listening.

"So what is the point of taking a communications jammer aboard a commercial airliner? Apart from the obvious. Causing an aircraft to fly blind is hardly likely to create the sort of international incident she was insinuating."

In the other room, the rest of the team had been wondering the same thing. It hadn't really made any sense to them, either, once they had thought about the message and even less when Elena had announced their plan. _'…a spectacular…ruin relations between us for years.'_ The shadow of an idea chased itself through Coaver's tired mind but was banished by the sight of Ruth re-entering the map room.

When she walked back into the room Elena looked over at her with a face that was maintaining its indifference but there was a glitter of anticipation in the tawny eyes.

"What's happened?" The fact that the woman had returned so quickly suggested that something had gone on but Ruth was looking strangely calm as she replied with something that wasn't expected.

"Your phoney defection. That night in Treptower Park, when Harry was supposed to collect you." She stopped in thought for a moment, wondering how she was going to get through to this unfathomable person. If she could. Cocking her head to one side she finally went on, after the silence had extended long enough to start getting uncomfortable, "You were taking Sasha with you. You were going to bring him into the lie that Harry was his father. You, the Russian patriot, would have let him grow up British." Outside, Sasha's concentration on events was splintering again, into a million shards of disconnected thoughts, feelings, vision and sound and the white noise, like static in his brain, was threatening to overwhelm him again. Desperate for an anchor of some sort he glanced over at his father but Ilya was still doing his impression of an Easter Island _moai_, staring, unblinking, remote and so very, very frozen as he waged his own private, totally internalised battle as Ruth continued with a final expression of incomprehension. "It's an odd way to show a mother's love." _Or any sign of thoughtfulness or caring towards a child,_ was the corollary thought but she didn't have a chance to vocalise it as Elena replied dismissively,

"I would have protected him."

She couldn't hold back her disgust any longer.

"You used _your own son_ as an asset, to help you sell the lie." Screwing her face up in disbelief she spat, distressed and angry at the woman's intransigence, "He was just a little boy, Elena—"

That stung, as much as anything could. _What would this ineffectual little acolyte of Harry's know about a mother's love? How dared she? _

"I love my son—"

"_But you always put your country first_." There was a pause, fraught with tension, until Ruth gave up the battle to even begin to understand the alien creature opposite her and instead stated a simple truth. "And that makes you a fanatic." For a third time Elena's foundations shivered slightly when confronted by this _unprepossessing little desk clerk. _ _Who was she to make a pronouncement on anyone, on someone who had lived a far broader, more exciting life than she ever would? _

Revolted, Ruth threw a final look of disgust at her before turning her back on her and walking out. Behind the mirrored glass, Ilya turned away, abruptly, and also walked out, unable to stand the sight any more and needing to get away, if only for a moment. To mourn, although he didn't recognise it as that. Mourning wasn't an emotion that Ilya Andreivitch Gavrik was overly familiar with in his adult life: he had grieved for his father but not deeply – he had been elderly and unwell, so his demise had not been unexpected – although it had been a different case when his only sister, the mother-figure for her three small brothers after their real mother had died when Ilya was a year old, had been killed almost fifty years ago in a workplace accident when he had been fourteen and she, newly married and with the world at her feet, had just turned twenty three. That event had completely changed his view of life and created the iron resolve that had controlled him ever since and today, now, he was back there, fourteen, his heart in pieces and feeling totally adrift, rudderless. And so he walked.

Sasha gazed after him, desperate to follow but also afraid, then a movement beyond the window caught his eye and he turned back. His mother was approaching, tentatively, clearly looking for him but unable to see him and, not quite knowing, she was looking off to one side. The effect was slightly unsettling but seemed oddly appropriate: she was looking for him but couldn't see him, as it seemed she never had. Not as an independent person or even as a son. He was just an asset. That's all he had ever been. The realisation was bitter but he felt strangely calm in his despair. The anger would return, he knew that, but not yet.

Ilya had walked down the corridor, away from everyone and, unbeknownst, towards the area where his son and Harry had talked earlier. He was cold, so very, very cold, but determined to cope, to do what had to be done. It was bad enough that she had used him, ever since their marriage, maybe even before (_had even that been a sham, part of her long-term strategy?)_, and that she had also been playing Harry Pearce, but _Sasha_? Their only child? And to the extent that she had been willing to remove the boy entirely, to a foreign country and away from his entire family, for a _political _aim? What the Englishwoman had said was right: his wife was beyond insane, she was un-natural, an abhorrence to the laws of nature, something alien that was beyond everyone's comprehension. Something that needed to be terminated before she did any more damage to anyone. Suddenly overwhelmed by grief and sorrow, his gut twisting into a knot and momentarily unable to breath, he leaned against a heavy-duty pipe that climbed the wall next to him, eyes filming over, allowing the devastation its expression until his habitual control reasserted itself. Palpably steeling himself to do what was necessary, he schooled his features back into an impassive mask, controlled his breathing and straightened up again as he considered the justice that needed to be delivered, for Sasha and all her other innocent victims, including, in a way, both Harry and himself. He was, once more, so very, very cold.

Elena heard the door squeak open behind her and turned to see Sasha walk in.

"Sasha," she said, voice warm, throaty, cloyingly sweet as it had always been. Except now he knew it was all an act, that she cared for him about as much as she cared about a rat in the basement. He was nothing to her, just another piece on the chessboard to be used to achieve her political checkmate. He refused to look at her until he stopped a few steps into the room, hands on hips, and lifted a face that had both challenge and distress written all over it. It was regrettable that he had heard it all but she had no doubt that she could fix it, get him back on her side. Walking to him she asked, sympathetically, "You heard everything?" He nodded, blue eyes suddenly filling and she reached a hand up to him, consolingly. "Everything I have done, I have done for the future of our country, and you are that, Sasha." He would understand, she was supremely sure of that.

Evgeny Kuzin had silently begged to differ with Ms Evershed when she had accused Gavrik of always putting her country first. _She wasn't putting Russia first, no matter what the name of her political party insinuated; she was putting her own power first, so far ahead that there was daylight between her ego and anything else. _With that thought he quietly picked up his phone and placed a brief call to head office in Moscow. Even before he had hung up the local crews, placed on stand-by before he had left the office in London, were on the move and, in simultaneous raids across the length and breadth of that vast country, RussiaFirst would be irretrievably destroyed within the next hour.

Coaver, like everyone else, was intent on monitoring the unfolding scene in the map room and so was startled by the careful touch on his shoulder, glancing up to see the giant Russian leaning over him.

"Jim." The man's voice was an almost subliminal rumble but the bleak expression on his face was unmissable. "I have just given the command to Moscow to pick up Levrov and his friends. We have enough now to convict them so we will be happy to end this whenever you wish."

The American nodded slowly, seeing the ice-floes in the other man's grey eyes and knowing that, finally, Levrov had met his match.

"D'wane, let Harry know."

The young man's fingers flew over the keyboard, advising the MI5 crew on the other side of the wall but the CIA representatives knew that wouldn't be it. The FSB might have what they wanted but it was highly unlikely that Harry was finished yet. _And then,_ thought both Tallulah and Jim, _there was the wild-card that was Ilya Gavrik._ They had seen him arrive earlier and be let in by Calum and neither held any misconception that he was likely to let Elena get away with it. He was a proud man but he was also fair, in his own way, and unwavering in his devotion to doing things the correct way as he saw it, and Jim was fairly certain that Elena's revelations would be as shocking to Ilya as they were to the rest of them, if not more so, and he would want to correct her actions, to at least deliver some justice, if not actively avenge, her crimes against the innocent. He was honourable; his wife most definitely was not.

Ruth's return to the room and confrontation with Elena had diverted Harry and Calum's attention away from their deliberations as quickly as it had Jim and what passed between the two women had left the older man feeling somewhat soiled. That he had ever entertained feelings of any sort for this woman now horrified and disgusted him while her attitude to Sasha made him want nothing more than throttle her, if it wasn't for the fact that it would be too good for her and would make the boy's life even worse…

In the interval immediately after Ruth had walked out again Kuzin's message had come through from D'wane but Harry had just shaken his head, exactly as Jim had suspected. Happy though he was to know RussiaFirst was being crushed even as they were standing there, he was still not finished with Elena Platonovna. Giving himself an internal shake he returned to worrying away at the connection between a commercial airliner, a communications jammer and a proposed terrorist act that would destroy the relationship between their two countries for years.

"Calum, what are we missing? We have a passenger plane with how many people on board?"

Briefly tapping away at the keyboard for a moment he finally glanced up and replied concisely,

"Three hundred and twelve. Mostly Russians and Brits."

"So, a plane carrying several hundred innocent civilians also has a Russian Nationalist extremist with a communications jammer on board. Zykov _had_ activated the thing before the FSB took him?"

While they awaited the response Ruth returned. Infuriated with the other woman she had barely noticed Ilya's absence from his previous position or his form reappearing from the shadows of the corridor and her eyes were still sparking when she rejoined the men.

"That woman is a monster, Harry. If she didn't hesitate to use her son then we can't know what else she will do but it looks like she intends to start by blowing up an innocent passenger jet—"

"It's not a bomb," Harry interrupted quietly. "It's a comms jammer and it's been deactivated by the FSB, who also have Zykov in custody. The plane is safe."

"Confirmation it was on and functioning, Harry."

The announcement had taken Ruth by surprise and deflated her anger a little, to be replaced by the same puzzlement that was gripping everyone else.

"But that makes no sense."

"No, it doesn't. That's what we were trying to work out when you came back in. Aircraft have procedures for flying blind so the jammer is only part of the plan. We were assuming they were going to bring the plane down over London, on final approach to Heathrow, potentially creating thousands of fatalities but there is no bomb. We are missing something."

The frustration and tiredness was both visible and audible as he struggled to pin down an echo of something that was chasing through his mind. Elsewhere, Jim Coaver was hunting down that phantasm of his own through the distant recesses of his brain – if only he wasn't so dead beat he might be able to catch the damned thing. His body was still complaining, loudly, every time he moved, which wasn't helping either, but the answer was on the tip of his tongue—

"She wants you to shoot down that plane." The deep voice, wearier than either of the other men felt, came from behind the group in the outer room and they turned as one to see Ilya Gavrik leaning on the door frame, grey, exhausted, almost broken but with a steely determination in his dark eyes. He had been there long enough to hear the previous conversation and had put the story together as soon as he had heard Ruth's comment. Seeding misinformation to get others to do their dirty work was an old Soviet trick and he was a little surprised that Harry hadn't quite worked it out yet, although he was clearly getting there. "You are meant to believe there is a bomb on board; combined with a non-responsive aircraft and her words you were then to make the assumption that a terrorist attack was under way on your country and act accordingly, shooting down the plane before it got over the metropolitan area, which Moscow would then take as an act of war."

As soon as they heard the words everyone recognised the truth in them: they were the vocalisation of Harry's echo and Jim's phantasm and the certainty with which Ilya spoke only underlined the correctness of his assumption.

"The people she works for want conflict between us and Russia and it's far better for them to let us start it…" Ruth's whisper tailed off in sickened comprehension as she stared at Ilya with wide, pale eyes. The man nodded, once, and wearily pushed himself upright as Calum followed up with a horrified,

"She would kill hundreds of innocent people. Just like that."

"Yes." The Russian's voice almost creaked with the weight of the afternoon's revelations but the determination was unbending as he walked a few steps into the room, towards the trio. "She has destroyed her own family in pursuit of her own self-aggrandisement so what are a few strangers to her?" Coming to a halt almost within touching distance of Harry he added, "It is Levrov, isn't it? Behind all this? I would like to know the truth, Harry. Please."

They stared at each other for a long instant, both recognising and silently acknowledging the unpalatable truths that would bind them together forever after today until a flicker on Calum's screen caught the Englishman's eye.

"_Tell him_."

It was from Jim and Evgeny, listening in _via_ the comms link on Calum's computer. Harry could see the sense of it so that's what he did. Concise but missing very little out (apart from the knowledge that Jim was actually alive and that he was sitting in the next room with Kuzin), he watched his old Nemesis turn even greyer and harder as he spoke but it gave him no pleasure. They were on the same side in this particular battle. Finishing his bitter tale with the events of the day that had led to them being where they now were, Ilya said nothing for a moment as he homed in on the salient points.

"I will see to it that RussiaFirst are dealt with. As soon as we are finished here."

Harry shook his head, never taking his eyes off the other man.

"You don't need to, Ilya. It's already in hand as we speak."

A stillness, followed by an abrupt nod.

"So now it is only her."

They both turned to look through the distant windows to where Elena was still clearly trying to convince Sasha of her innocence. The blond man looked at the tall Russian standing next to him and recognised a feeling he never though to experience in relation to that particular person: sympathy.

"Yes. We need to decide how to finish this."

The silence stretched as they both stared at the elegant red-head in the map room until Ilya finally spoke, voice as parched as a desert wind.

"Despite what you might think, Harry, I have spent twenty years trying to better the lot of my country and its people, in addition to that of my employees and shareholders. And for all of that time and longer, from before the start of our marriage, my wife has been betraying our country and me, acting to counter and destroy everything I have worked for and believed in. She has used you, and me, and probably permanently damaged her own son as part of that. I think you know how it needs to finish." They finally looked at each other, two sets of dark eyes measuring each other and understanding exactly what was meant but neither voiced it. Jim, Evgeny and Tallulah also understood perfectly, as did Ruth and Calum, but not a word was said. "However, not yet." Ilya returned to watching his family, face bleak. "She appears to be willing to participate in an act of international terrorism for her beliefs but I want to see how far she is really prepared to go." He made a move to walk back out but Harry stopped him with a hand laid lightly on his arm.

"Not you, Ilya. Let me do it. I have as much of a stake in this as you but she thinks considerably less of me so she may be prepared to admit more to me because of it. She already has, after all."

Their eyes locked until the Russian finally inclined his head and all the listeners, known and unknown, slowly released the breaths they hadn't even realised they were holding.

"Very well but on one condition. I want to speak to her, alone, afterwards. Even you will admit I am entitled to that."

"Agreed." He was walking out almost before he had finished speaking but turned back at the doorway and added, "Ilya, you must trust me. Whatever you see, believe me when I say I will not harm Sasha."

The expression that passed over Gavrik's face suggested that he had better not but he nodded his agreement and then Harry was gone, stopping only briefly to pick up and reload Sasha's gun from the small table where it had lain, neglected, since he had moved it and its magazine there when he and Sasha had first returned to join the group what felt like hours ago. Calum's eyes followed his movements and he suddenly went pale when he saw the gun while Ruth bit her bottom lip, hard, to stop herself from saying anything. _He was back in control,_ she told herself. _Nothing stupid would happen…_

Back in the map room Sasha had been enduring more of his mother's cloyingly sweet justifications but the turmoil in his mind had allowed him to ignore most of it while he tried to dampen down his rising anger. Finally, desperate to shut her up, he said,

"I forgive you," and she sighed with relief, drawing him into a hug and kissing him on the cheek. He repressed a flinch at her touch but the sound of the door opening stopped him from saying what he was about to; instead, they broke apart and turned to see Harry walk in. His mind momentarily stilled the young man started to ask,

"Harry—"

There was no warning as Harry's left fist came out of nowhere and sent Sasha flying. Elena, stunned, issued a shriek as the blond man pushed her son face-first into the table top and put the pistol in his right hand to the boy's head with a quiet warning.

"Don't struggle, Sasha." The dark eyes burned into Elena as he went on with absolute loathing, "You're lying. There is no plan to crash the plane, you want us to shoot it down, correct?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Suddenly, staggeringly out of her comfort zone and with the world having turned on its axis without her, leaving her bereft of control, the woman was panicking and Harry was quick to take advantage. Lifting Sasha he slammed him forward again, once more crashing his face into the desk and pushing the pistol into his temple.

"You won't—"

"Why not? What is he to me? One more Russian spy? I've killed them before. It's not as if he's my son." The voice was vicious and the veracity of the words was impossible to miss as he allowed, just for a moment, some of the genuine fury he felt towards the woman come through. Clamping firmly down on the desire to vent his rage and remembering he didn't need to antagonise Ilya at this stage, he took a deep breath, pressed the gun even harder against the boy's skull and demanded, "You held a gun to my head not long ago, boy. How does it feel, hmm?"

"Settle, Harry…" Jim breathed, slightly on edge at the turn events had suddenly taken despite being well aware that it was all an act, albeit a slightly vindictive one. His old buddy was only doing what they all would have liked to be doing, after all. D'wane was staring through the window, agog at the performance, while Kuzin and Tallulah were both impassive. The Russian hadn't actually expected MI5 or the CIA to call the show off yet and he himself didn't care, one way or the other. The woman deserved everything she was getting and so did her son.

Ruth watched with increasing consternation. She understood that Harry was infuriated in a way she had never seen before and she also realised that he was using that anger to continue his stellar performance but there was an edge to it that made her uneasy. She was unconsciously chewing her bottom lip and wringing her hands when a deep voice said quietly,

"Miss Evershed."

She glanced sideways to see llya Gavrik standing next to her.

"Minister?"

The man's eyes were opaque again, like orbs of tiger's eye: scintillating, textured, with shifting shades of gold and brown that made it impossible to pin down any thoughts that might be behind them as he made his request, his tone and gaze hypnotic, persuasive.

"I would like the key to the room my wife is in. I can't ask Harry. He would never agree. But you can."

She couldn't tear her own gaze away from him for a moment. She understood, perfectly, what he was asking and it suddenly turned the tables on her a little. As she had just been wondering about Harry's dark side, now Ilya was appealing to hers. And she knew he would be successful, just as she suddenly realised that the action she was about to take would put her, in another way, on a similar plane to Harry. Would, finally, level that playing field, at least a little. Still holding Gavrik's eyes she slowly nodded.

Elena was desperate to regain control and started to beg, tears welling. It usually worked with him.

"Harry, stop this, please."

"I'd be doing him a favour—" the venomous look he gave her made her recoil "—after the life you've given him." She couldn't believe what was happening, that he wasn't succumbing to the emotion of her appeal yet and her anger and incomprehension was visible to all, balm to the souls of Jim Coaver and Ruth Evershed at least. "This is your last chance, Elena. To tell the truth." His voice was like frost, crystalline, beautiful, harsh and totally inimical.

_So he wasn't going to react as she had expected. Well, she wasn't going to admit anything to him, damn him – the operation was under way and was unstoppable so to Hell with him, with all of them. But she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of confirming that he was correct. _

"I—I am." Continuing her own performance she shook her head, voice and face still overwrought. "I, I have sacrificed everything to tell you the truth."

_She still wasn't going to admit it. _With Ilya's words _'I want to see how far she is really prepared to go'_ whispering in his mind he breathed,

"Oh yeah. That's what frightens me," and prepared to push her to what should be the uncrossable line that she had been talking about before. Or what would be uncrossable for anyone normal. Standing back, he cocked the pistol and pointed it at Sasha's head, looking over at Elena to see if she was going to take this one last chance. There was disbelief on her face but still, underneath it, that unshakeable superiority that he wouldn't act, that she would still achieve her aim. So he pulled the trigger.

The explosion of the bullet being launched caused everyone's heart to stop momentarily. Jim swore under his breath, even as he realised it had been a ruse; Tallulah and Evgeny, stunned, glanced at each other and then back out into the room as they understood the same while both Calum and D'wane felt the shock of the bullet as though it had been aimed at them. Ruth had been horrified as Harry had taken aim and she suddenly realised what he was about to do and had jumped at the loudness of the shot but Ilya had briefly laid a calming hand on her shoulder as Elena had screamed, for a moment genuinely terrified. Glancing up at the tall man by her side to see how he had reacted, Ruth was surprised to see Gavrik apparently unmoved and wondered if he was as unnatural as his wife. Wondered until she had remembered what Harry had said to him just before he had walked out: astounding though it was it seemed that Colonel Ilya Andreivitch Gavrik, legend of the KGB, did indeed trust his former MI6 deadly enemy with the life and well-being of his son under these, the strangest of circumstances. Everyone was relieved beyond measure when Harry pulled Sasha upright, uninjured, and pushed him away.

Elena's lack of response, lack of the normal instinct of a parent to protect their child, was the last straw for both Harry and Ilya. No matter what excuses she came up with now or how good a performance she put on, nothing would save her. The Englishman's eyes were dark, burning embers of passionate incomprehension fuelled by seething rage as he demanded,

"Why couldn't you lie to me? Why couldn't you just tell me what I wanted to hear?" Reality had been blurring again for Sasha after the shock of Harry's actions and he was having to fight to retain his grip through the physical pain of having his face rammed into the table top not once but twice and through the psychological pain of having everything he thought he knew irretrievably smashed. Hand to the tenderest part of his head, subconsciously noting that there was no blood – Harry had actually pulled his punches, so to speak, to ensure there was no major physical damage – he registered the older man's questions and his eyes snapped up. He, too, would very much like to know the answers. "To save him. You would have sacrificed your son for the sake of your operation." The disbelief written on Harry's face was genuine as he finally gave up attempting to understand this person or even to find someone or something he could compare her to in order to gain some, any, sort of insight into the workings of a mind that was capable of that. Ruth was right: Elena was a fanatic, of the worst sort, right up there with those in Palestine or Ireland or any other hell-hole you could name who raised their children to be sacrificial lambs at the altar of some perverted belief system. He couldn't stand to stay in the same room, or even the same building, as her for another second. Jim or Evgeny could have her; he never wanted to see, hear or think of her ever again. She could rot in the depths of a CIA or FSB dungeon for the rest of her miserable life. No longer bothering to hide the absolute, immutable loathing in his eyes he grated a disgusted, "You're ten times the spy I ever was," before shaking his head in revulsion at all she was and walking out.

Elena barely watched him go, dismissing his reactions as no longer relevant. Of course he couldn't understand, he had always been too inclined to be enslaved to his emotions, it was what made him so easy to use. He had played his part and was no longer important but she was faintly concerned about Sasha. He was still hers and she did not like to think of what thoughts Harry may have just put into his head so she turned to him, ready to ease him through the pain, and was stunned by the look of pure horror he sent her way as he, too, turned and began to walk away, fighting the encroaching noise as he tried, and failed, to comprehend it all.

"_Kalinka_," She put a hand out to try to stop him but he brushed past her, refusing to meet her eyes. _What? What was happening? Surely he understood, he was her son_— he kept walking and she called to his back, increasingly desperate as she saw him slipping, finally and forever, away from her. "No, Sasha. I knew he wouldn't shoot you, I knew that—"

"No." That realisation had been the bitterest of all for Aleksandr Illych and the white noise in his mind was almost overwhelming as he swallowed back the tears that were threatening to spill over and finally looked at her. The hatred she saw them was like a slap in the face but all there was in his voice was an ineffable weariness. "No, you didn't." Like Harry, he walked out and left her alone, staring into an abyss of emptiness, desertion and failure that she could barely comprehend.

Outside, Harry was supporting himself against the wall, drained and shattered by the performance, trying to recover some sort of composure before he returned to the others. It was time to pass the baton over to Jim and Evgeny Petrovitch, let them bring the curtain down. Sasha came out and walked past him, blinkered by his pain, his face a study of suffering and confusion that made Harry's heart bleed; unseen by the boy, he watched him go and then leaned heavily against the door to the map-room, closing it again as he tried to find the energy to finish it all. Permanently.

Unknowingly, Sasha was retracing his father's earlier footsteps, looking for a dark corner to lick his wounds. Ilya himself, his core as old and cold and still as the centre of time had watched it all, apparently unmoved. When Elena was finally left alone he said quietly to the woman still standing next to him,

"I would like to speak to my wife now, Miss Evershed."

Ruth had forgotten him in the horror of what had been revealed in that room until the deep voice murmuring almost silkily in her ear startled her back into the immediate present and she glanced up at him, heart in her throat. The shifting, shimmering colours of his eyes still rendered them opaque to interpretation or understanding but she knew what he wanted. It was her turn to deliver on the agreement.


	21. Chapter 21

**21. MoD Facility. 13:36 hours.**

Ruth had gone in search of Harry and found him still leaning against the door, looking, if it was possible, greyer than Gavrik had appeared earlier. Her heart went out to him and, more than anything else, she just wanted to hold him and tell him that the nightmare was over. But it wasn't and they didn't have the time, yet, to indulge in the personal. Touching his arm briefly she said, with no preamble,

"He wants the key."

Harry finally looked over at her and she was surprised. He looked, and was, exhausted, physically, but his mind clearly was not: hard, immediately comprehending and implacable, he stared at her – no, _through_ her – for a moment, then wordlessly reached into his pocket and handed it over. He knew exactly what Ilya was planning and, like her, didn't care. It would be like removing vermin, nothing more and if Ilya wanted to do the deed to assuage his desire for justice for the sins visited on his son, well it would conveniently get MI5, the CIA and the FSB off the hook for responsibility for the act…

As she turned to go, Dimitri and Erin burst back in through the front door but she didn't stop. It would be easier for Harry to explain what had happened while they were away. She would rather face Gavrik again than listen to a repeat of that tale any time soon.

Jim Coaver and Evgeny Kuzin had both breathed a sigh that was a combination of relief and satisfaction that it had all ended safely and had confirmed what everyone had thought about Elena and RussiaFirst. Glancing across at the American, Kuzin stated quietly,

"I believe it might soon be time for us to enter the stage, my friend."

Coaver nodded.

"Yes, it would appear so. We may have to be ready to move quickly once Ilya is in there, though. If we want to stop him, that is."

"We do." Those Arctic ice floes that had been in Kuzin's eyes not so long since had now transferred themselves to his voice, as he stared out through the window at the woman waiting in the room beyond the grate. She had pulled herself together quickly after Sasha had left and the door had clanged shut but she was noticeably paler than she had been before. The floes ground themselves together. "She must be held to account for her actions. Death is too quick for that."

"Very well." Jim's muscles screamed as he pushed himself to his feet and hobbled to the doorway, checking his shoulder holster on the way to the inner door that would give him access, just out of sight of anyone in the map room, to the corridor leading to the grate. Turning to look back at the trio behind them he added, "I will wait out here but the rest of you need to be ready to move. Just in case."

Tallulah nodded but stayed by the monitor so that she could hear what was said. He wasn't worried about that – she was fearsomely fit and probably the fastest person in the room, despite her age – but he was slightly relieved when Kuzin told Pavlov to stay with Tallulah while he himself moved to join Jim. He would have someone at his back, should his protesting body fail him.

Harry was no longer by the door when Ruth returned with Gavrik. He had moved away, deliberately and leaving the pistol where he had first picked it up, with Erin and Dimitri as he brought them up to speed, on the assumption that it may have been easier all around if he wasn't visible when Ilya went into that room. As it happened it wouldn't have made any difference: Ilya had made up his mind and nothing would have deflected him.

When they reached the door Ruth handed over the key and walked away, joining the others, now back behind the windows, to watch. Elena was standing, motionless, by the map table when she heard the door open behind her and she turned to see her husband walking through. Even at a distance and through a mirrored window the others saw her pale and heard the dread in her voice.

"Ilya!" She took a breath, trying to control her fear. "How long have you been here?" _How much had he heard? _She could feel panic rising in her chest: if he had heard even half of what had been said then she was dead. She knew that. She would have to find out and try to deflect him.

As he approached he said, in a tone she had never heard before,

"Sit down, Elena." She did so, nerves screaming but still in control as he sat opposite her. It was strange but she had never realised how opaque his eyes could be. His voice, though, was not and in it she heard the same horrified revulsion that had been in Sasha's, and Harry's. Looking over at where he knew his son would be standing, watching, he glanced back at his wife and said, "You really would have brought that plane down and let those people die? And told yourself it was for _Russia_?"

His disgust was palpable but that wouldn't matter. She would tell him the truth and then he would see, he would understand that she had been acting rightly, to return their country to greatness and provide the best future for their boy. She, too, glanced over at the window and smiled slightly.

"Yes."

_She is beyond insane. It's the only explanation._ Without a further word he stood up again and headed for the door with the key, locking it with a decisive thump of the tumbler. Sasha barely noticed, his gaze still locked on his mother in total disbelief at what she had just said but Harry breathed an almost silent,

"Get ready, Jim," despite knowing the other man couldn't hear. He could see, though, and had exactly the same thought, shooting a quick, confirmatory look at Kuzin, who nodded his agreement and beckoned Tallulah and Pavlov to join them.

Walking back to the table Ilya stopped in front of Elena and stared down at her. She quailed a little as he spoke, almost meditatively.

"If you bring down the plane the partnership between our countries counts for nothing and reprisals will be immediate. We start with the NATO submarine fleet in the north Atlantic, removing their nuclear capability in twelve hours. NATO responds and a full-scale war breaks out with thousands of casualties on both sides within the first day. And you believe you are doing our country a _favour _by creating this?" The harshness of the last words made her realise that he wasn't going to understand, wasn't going to join her in their plans to restore Russia to her glorious heights. Instead he had sold out to the West, like all the rest of them— "What happened to you?"

There was genuine incomprehension in his question, but some sadness as well. Maybe she could use that, spin another sorry tale for him as she had for Harry. She had controlled Ilya Andreivitch for thirty five years, there was no reason why that shouldn't continue and she could save him from himself, they could go on as the golden couple at the right hand of Mikhail Sergeievitch and see her ultimate plan to its culmination: the ascension of their son to the leadership of the party and Russia itself. _That _was what it was really all about: when she had told Sasha that he was the future of Russia, she had meant it literally. Ilya would agree. Schooling her face into wide-eyed suffering she gazed up at him and replied, slightly tremulously,

"All the lies. I carried too many for too long."

Outside, Harry couldn't take the effrontery of the woman any more. He saw the expression on Ilya's face and knew Elena wasn't going to talk her way out of it and, in any case, neither Jim nor Evgeny were about to let her off either so, satisfied that he didn't have to watch any more of the stomach-churning performance, he said to Erin,

"When the plane lands, have a team standing by to take Zykov," and then began to move away. "I need some air." Walking out without looking back he missed the look Ruth threw after him, anxious but understanding. She was worried about the effects of the last couple of days on him but also recognised he needed some room. She would give him a few minutes and then follow him out to make sure he was okay...

Ilya, meantime, nodded sympathetically but his heart was as hard, cold and dry as a stone. She could not be allowed to go on and what he was about to do was both the quickest and, possibly, the kindest path. Certainly for Sasha. He hoped the boy would one day understand but he genuinely feared for his son's future sanity and safety if his mother remained around to continue to poison his mind. Laying a gentle hand on her shoulder as he moved around behind her, she put her own hand up to cover his, encouraging, empathic and allowed herself an internal sigh of relief as he leaned over and wrapped his other arm around her shoulders, forearm resting across the top of her collar-bone and leaning his cheek against her hair. _It would be okay._

"It's all right, Ilya," she crooned, victory in her eyes and her mind. _She would win. He would come around and all her plans would achieve their glorious fruition._

For a moment there was stillness in the entire building as everyone held their breath, watching the tableau in front of them. The moment hung on, endless, frozen, until finally Ilya began to move, a subtle tightening of his forearm against her throat. Elena's eyes widened in horror and she took a tight breath, reaching her hands to clutch at his suffocating arm as she finally realised his intent but before anything else could happen the pair of them were startled by the rattling of the metal concertina gate behind them as it was thrust open and Jim Coaver sauntered through, hands in pockets. Strolling to the door he casually unlocked it before returning to stop in front of the couple, saying insouciantly,

"Don't do that, Ilya. Let me deal with her for you."

Gavrik's eyes narrowed as he loosened his grip and stood up, staring at the American's battered visage through his shock until recognition dawned.

"Jim Coaver. CIA."

"As I live and breathe. Long time no see, Ilya. I would ask how you are but I can see the answer to that." It was true. He had never thought to see Ilya Gavrik looking totally emotionally devastated but he was today and, after the discoveries of the past few weeks, he could feel nothing but sympathy for him. Finally looking down at the woman, the cause of all this mayhem and distress, his eyes glittered as he took in her stunned expression and added, "How goes it, Elena? You look surprised to see me again after all this time. Oh, I forgot." He smiled his shark's smile. "I'm supposed to be dead, aren't I? You believed Harry yesterday when he told you Ilescu had terminated me." _God, he was enjoying this so much it was almost indecent. _ Ilya was clearly stunned to have the relationship between his wife and the CIA Deputy Director confirmed along with her attempted murder of Coaver while Elena was staring up at the American in complete shock, horror and disbelief: _how was he here? Ilescu's team had dealt with him, Harry had told her that…_ Belatedly, she realised. The game had been turned. Harry had lied to her. Had been lying to her for how long? _When had they realised?_

She was so focussed on her former handler/asset that she didn't see Ilya draw back, looking down at her with bleak repugnance. He had understood, immediately, the implications of Coaver's words: she _had_ been working with the Americans as well as with the British for her political masters back then. She had been willing to spark a war between Russia and the West, using those old relationships, now. Was there no end to the depths to which she would sink to achieve her perverted ends? He was glad, now, that Coaver had stopped him. A quick death was too good for her. Justice might be better served in making her suffer, at least for a little while, before he delivered that final release. The American was speaking.

"Cat got your tongue, honey?"

_She had always hated it when he called her that. _Elena swallowed and pulled herself back together. It wasn't over yet: he had no idea who he was really dealing with. Tilting her head slightly to one side she smiled gently.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

The shark's smile continued to play around the man's lips.

"Yes, you do. Your links with RussiaFirst. Rustam Ilescu, your husband's former bodyguard; Jovan Milic, Ilescu's friend from their days together in Kosove. Their hireling, Sanzo Morales, who made the bomb, on your instruction, that was used to attempt to assassinate the Home Secretary yesterday afternoon. We have them, Elena, and they're singing like a flock of canaries because we also have their families and you and Mikhail Levrov can't compete against that. Then there's Zubin Trinejastic. We know that you deliberately fed us the information through him that got me here to London to play my part in your plan. Then, when you were done with me and you realised I was about to turn you in to Harry, you tried to have me killed. Only it didn't work because we've been following you for weeks so my people were on hand, along with Harry himself, to thwart it. We know everything, Elena, and now you are going to pay for it. Every last trick you've played on us, thirty years ago or today." His voice was light, almost playful, but his eyes were not and, for the second time in her life, in almost as few minutes, she felt real fear. Ilescu and his team had betrayed her – well, that explained why they had disappeared and she would make them pay for that – but in the meantime she was damned if she was just going to give up to this loathsome representative of everything she hated. She had despised him in Berlin and she despised him now, almost as much as she despised Harry Pearce. They were so weak, so easily controlled through emotional manipulation. Her own smile returned.

"You can prove nothing because I have no present connection to any of those people—"

"We can prove everything because we also have Veronica Duran and she's singing the loudest of them all. Not only that, but she's providing hard evidence as well." He was immensely satisfied to see her blench at the mention of the name but he wasn't finished yet, continuing confidentially, "You see, what you clearly don't know about Veronica is that she keeps records of absolutely everything, as a form of insurance. And that includes recordings of her telephone and personal conversations with you, sweetheart, including the meeting where she handed over the laptop stolen from MI5. The one you then gave Victor Elliott which led to the murder of a man called John Grogan and the exposure of the truth of Martha Forde to your husband. _That _must have been a shock, when Ilya didn't react the way you wanted him to and walk out of the negotiations as a result of that little revelation. You underestimated him the way you've underestimated the rest of us." Settling on the edge of the map table to take the weight off his right leg he added, almost as an after-thought, "We are in the process of bringing Elliott in as well but we've also been back in touch with Hamet Fasli and he's content to deal with us, for the right amount of money. You see, like Veronica, he's one of our deniable assets, has been for years, and we pay much more than RussiaFirst does." The woman had grown very still while he was speaking, her expression hardly changing as she considered the implications of what he was presenting. He had been cleverer than she had thought possible but she still wasn't convinced that he knew the truth about how it all fitted together. His next words disabused her of that thought. "We know that Marcus Collison, the man you hired through Duran to make the assassination attempt on your husband, has done a lot of work for Hamet Fasli. We know that Veronica and Fasli work together on occasions and we also now know that Mikhail Levrov has used Fasli's talents on several occasions for various unsavoury purposes, not the least of which was providing Rustam Ilescu when Ilya was looking for a bodyguard and providing you with Veronica Duran's contact details just before you skipped Moscow for London."

Jim noted the veriest flicker of fear in her eyes and knew that he was finally getting through her almost impenetrable defences. She could see that he had seen it but had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of admitting it. Instead, her smile fixed in place, she chided him gently, patronisingly.

"So what are you going to do, Jim? Arrest me? Torture me? Or just make me disappear? That will not make my people happy and will precipitate exactly the sort of international incident that you're trying to prevent."

He would ignore the latter comment for the moment and let Evgeny put her straight instead.

"Oh, we might start with giving you a holiday at Camp Delta to begin with and take it from there." Jim risked a look at Ilya but the other man wasn't paying any attention to him, he was gazing at his wife as though he had never seen her before and barely recognised her as anything human. That expression alone assured Coaver that the game was, irreversibly, over for Elena and RussiaFirst, so matter what he or Harry might do. "And once we've finished, we are going to hand what is left of you over to Harry and William Towers. The Home Secretary isn't very impressed that you tried to kill him, too, and the British government in general takes a rather dim view of anyone committing acts of terrorism against them. And as for Harry… well, one of his character flaws is that he takes it very personally when you murder his employees or his assets and you've done both. To say nothing of your use of Sasha. That was a major miscalculation on your part and it's _really _ticked him off because, like the rest of us, he actually prefers to keep his children _out _of any of his games, not draw them into centre stage."

She shrugged, elegantly, the smile still fixed on her mouth, pitying his lack of comprehension and spoke with absolute confidence.

"A few years in one of your gaols, with all the comforts of home? You forget that I grew up in the Soviet Union. Even if you do prove your preposterous claims I do not fear your prisons, Jim, nor Harry's."

Another voice, deep and sonorous, spoke from beyond the group.

"Perhaps not, Mrs Gavrik, but you should fear ours." They all turned as Evgeny Kuzin, in full uniform today expressly for this purpose, strolled forward much as Jim had done, although his movements were loose and confident where Coaver's had been clearly stiff and uncomfortable due to his injuries. In the background, just emerging from the gloom, Tallulah and Vasili Pavlov appeared together, weapons in hand. Kuzin himself, almost a head taller than either Jim or Ilya and the size of the two of them put together, easily dominated the room with his shock of blond hair and grey eyes like bergs floating in an Arctic ocean. Fixing those eyes on the woman he clarified, "Your long-time connections to Mikhail Sergeievitch Levrov and Yuri Pavlovitch Zykov are well known, Elena Platonovna, as is your involvement on behalf of RussiaFirst in a number of attempted and successful terrorist actions and political assassinations in recent years in Moscow, St Petersburg and Kiev. Now we have positive proof of your part in this attempt to move your terrorism into the global community and potentially spark war between our country and our friends here in the UK, to say nothing of your attempt to destroy this Partnership which Minister Gavrik and President Medvedev have been working towards for many years. The President wants answers from you and he wants you to suitably atone for your sins. To that end we were thinking that a long spell in a _psikhushka_ may be a suitable first stop when you return to us from the West, after which you will be sent to trial. Provided you are ever judged fit to stand, of course."

Both Ruth and Jim noted Elena turning ashen as Kuzin spoke and reality finally settled in, neutralising her confidence in a few words, and her eyes widened when he mentioned the notorious political psychiatric prisons from which few prisoners were released unscathed and many not at all. However, they had to give her points for her persistence as she started to answer,

"That will not happen. Both my husband and I have very powerful friends—"

Kuzin's most charming smile appeared as he made himself comfortable next to Coaver and interrupted her in a conversational tone similar to that the American had used.

"Perhaps I should explain, Mrs Gavrik. Your friends, Levrov and Zykov, their families and associates, including all the senior hierarchy and membership of RussiaFirst, are being rounded up and arrested as we speak. Half an hour ago Pavel Zykov was subdued by my agents aboard RussianAir Flight 474 and his jammer shut down. Everything today has been a charade to get you to confirm your friends' involvement in the recent events here as well as implicate yourself, which you have done very effectively. We knew what was happening as soon as Zykov went through the security screening at Domodedovo and he is about to be taken into custody by MI5 at Heathrow. All of them will be in prison by night-fall – they may be granted the privilege of a trial. Or may not. RussiaFirst has been forcibly closed down by the President and will never be allowed to reform. Do you understand now, Elena Platonovna? You are the last cog to be dismantled from that piece of machinery and you, too, will be thrown to the wolves." His voice was like the grinding of a glacier by now. "As for Minister Gavrik's friend—" here his glance flicked to Ilya "—Mr Putin has deeply personal reasons for supporting the President's actions, as I'm sure you know, and it appears that the Minister here is not impressed with what you have just revealed, either. Neither man will help you."

_Who on earth was this blond giant threatening her? Another traitor to the mother country, siding with the barbarous, infantile Americans and that strange, colourless little snake, Putin, with his lap-dog Medvedev. _There was something implacable about him, however, that froze the marrow in her bones so finally, desperately, Elena looked up at the military man she had married in 1977, already a Major and soon promoted to full Colonel, who had gone on to become firstly a Hero of the Soviet Union during the First Afghan War, where he had served with the GRU, then a legendary figure within the KGB and now strode the international political stage with such authority, and rolled her last dice. Tawny eyes huge and swimming in a pallid face and for the first time in her life genuinely terrified for her future, she pleaded hopelessly,

"Ilya, please. You cannot let them do this to me. I was only acting to defend our country, like you. Please, help me…"

Looking down at her as though she was a stranger, eyes remote and dispassionate despite the antipathy he now felt towards her, Ilya responded quietly,

"No, Elena. No more. I will not continue to protect you from the consequences of your actions. You are no longer my wife and no longer my responsibility."

Elena's mask of bravado finally crumbled to be replaced with a fear the likes of which she had never felt. Ilya had been there from the beginning, at her beck and call, willing to protect her from everything but now, in her moment of most desperate need, he had deserted her. She was still trying to digest that realisation when something crashed against the one-way mirror and startled them all.

On the dark side of the mirrored windows Sasha Gavrik had been watching the events unfold with increasing agitation. Largely beyond the point of rational thought he was running on a mix of fury, fear and deep confusion, close to losing his grip on reality. Then Kuzin had appeared and stunned him into a momentary stillness: _Kuzin was working with MI5 and the CIA? What the hell was that about? _Once the giant man had begun speaking, the boy's life fell apart: he was accusing Sasha's mother of being not a spy but a traitor and terrorist? Everything was turning to noise in his mind, making it impossible to think, let alone comprehend what was said afterwards: he thought he heard something about a psychiatric facility and then more about his mother's friends and the President and Prime Minister but it was seeing Elena suddenly beg his father for her life and his refusal that finally made him snap. None of this was her fault, she was the victim of them all: Levrov, Coaver and Pearce. Particularly Harry Pearce. Slamming his fist into the reinforced glass he roared a pained,

"NO!" and made for the door, noticing on the way through his gun on the small table on which Harry had left it earlier, and shoving it open to burst, wild-eyed, into the room. Behind him, Ruth realised the danger and said to Erin and Dimitri,

"You need to get in there. Now." They were on their way before she had finished talking and she waited until they had unobtrusively taken up a post with one on either side of the now-open door behind Sasha before turning away and following Harry outside, intent on letting him know what had happened and content that Jim, Kuzin, Erin and their crews would finish the tidy up. She, too, had had enough of the entire situation and wanted to leave it behind. In fact, she suddenly realised that she was ready to leave the whole damned thing behind: Thames House, the Home Office, everything. Although she had taken great personal pleasure just now in watching Elena Gavrik's crumbling façade and was silently celebrating their victory over this paranoid bunch of extremists the truth was that she had lost her taste for the games they had to play; the fun had turned to drudgery and the clarion call to the anonymity of every-day "normal" life was getting as strong for her as it was for Harry. The air outside was cold but it was bracing and both cleared and focussed her mind. She would go, find him and tell him what she was thinking, bring it all out in the open so they could finally address it. Maybe, just maybe, they were both ready to move on.

Inside, Sasha stared at his mother, sitting humiliated and powerless between his father and the FSB station chief, then at Tallulah Zanon and Vasili Pavlov, now standing on either side of the group and finally settled on Jim Coaver.

"You. You are framing my mother for something she didn't do. You and Harry Pearce. You have been using her for your own ends since _you _recruited her—"

"Sasha," Jim interrupted impatiently, "have you forgotten already? You witnessed her admit to recruiting me and Harry and to organising the hits on Tariq Masood, herself and your own damned father. Just now your precious mother would not compromise her terrorist operation to save your life when Harry had a gun at your head. And you heard her admit that she has used you to further her own political ends from the day you were conceived. The last thing she is, is innocent."

The boy's face twisted and for a second Coaver thought he had pushed him too far when Evgeny Kuzin cut in, voice dangerously soft.

"Aleksandr Ilych. Your distress is understandable but you are quite incorrect. Elena Platonovna Gavrik has been suspect for many years of being an enemy of the state and now, thanks to the good work of our friends in Thames House and Langley, that suspicion has been proven and we have been able to close down one of the most dangerous political organisations in Russia. As an FSB officer you should be pleased with that. As her son, you should also be pleased that your mother will now get the help she needs to deal with her delusions."

"_Help?_" the young man roared, impotence and frustration driving him to fury. "If she goes with Coaver or Pearce she will never return and even if she does you are going to put her in a _psikhushka _and she will not survive that—"

"Enough, Sasha." His father's voice, emotionless, dry and with the echoing emptiness of the desert, stopped him. "Your mother is guilty but do not worry, she will not be going to Langley." Walking away from Elena, he turned his eyes, lifeless, pitiless, towards Jim and Tallulah. "_We_ will deal with her for _you_, Jim. No matter what she has done to you and to Harry, do not forget that not only has she used me but also my son and has actively tried to destroy my country. And for that she must, and will, pay." Finally, he turned to look at her and they stared at each other, motionless, for a very long moment. She had never seen that expression on his face before but then very few had – or very few had who had survived to tell the tale – and at that point she knew it was all over. One way or the other, she was dead. Only it wouldn't be a quick end, as it would have been had he not been interrupted by Coaver. Instead, he was going to leave her to rot at the tender mercies of the staff at a high security psychiatric facility somewhere. For the rest of her life, which, she suspected and knowing her husband, wouldn't be long.

Staring back at her, merciless, Ilya felt nothing but revulsion for the abomination that was his wife. _Former _wife, he silently corrected himself. He would never, ever forgive her for what she had done to Sasha or for the active undermining of everything he had tried to achieve over the last quarter of a century. He had never had much time for emotions but Elena had stolen his heart the first time he had seen her, when he was in his mid-twenties and she was an incandescent nineteen year old _coryphée _on the stage of the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad, and he had been totally devoted to her ever since. He had forgiven her much in the following years, not the least of which was her affair with Harry Pearce, but hearing the truth come out today had totally destroyed the lustre that had clung to her, revealing the dross that lay beneath. Coaver had been right: a quick death was too good for her.

Elena tore her eyes away from her husband to glance frantically at her son. _Sasha would save her. She had spent her life protecting him, now he would protect her. _Sasha himself was looking around the room, as though trying to find something, anything, to get them out but before he could say or do anything Evgeny Kuzin cut in.

"You have other problems to worry about apart from Elena Platonovna's fate, Sasha." That got everyone's attention. Ilya looked perplexed; Elena slowly dragged her apprehensive gaze from her son to the FSB agent as his words sank in while Dimitri and Erin glanced at each other, suspecting what was coming. Jim and Tallulah didn't blink; they knew what he was about to say. "You, too, are under arrest, Aleksandr Ilych, for the murder of Anatoly Efraimovitch Arkanov. We have a witness, the body and his passport and wallet which were found in your room this afternoon. As your father cannot forgive your mother for her crimes, so I cannot forgive you for killing my god-son."

Elena's wail cut the atmosphere like a knife as she half-curled up in her chair, seeing the last chance for her future disintegrate while Ilya went white and suddenly looked ancient as he absorbed what had just been said. She had twisted their child's brain so thoroughly that she had turned him into a murderer as well as using him as a tool for RussiaFirst. A man who murdered of his own best friend… Harry had said nothing about _that _earlier on. When he re-focussed it was with a bleak finality in his eyes. He would escort the woman, personally, to her fate and ensure that she never saw daylight again. He knew exactly the facility in which to place her and, in a year or two when she had been forgotten by the outer world, he would bury her. Metaphorically or literally he hadn't quite decided, for Sasha's sake, but he _would _bury her.

Sasha's anger, frustration and confusion was short-circuited by Kuzin's words to be replaced by terror and he homed in on what he considered the most important points: the witness and the body. Harry Pearce. There was no-one else it could be. The noise in his head returned and, without warning, he fled the room, sweeping up the pistol as he ran past the table. Dimitri and Erin made to go after him but they were behind Tallulah, who had been closely watching the boy, expecting something of that kind, was already moving, and Jim, suddenly energised, who hauled himself to his feet and followed her, ordering the other pair to take over in here and finish things off with Kuzin. After the CIA agents had vanished at a run Erin looked at Kuzin and then back at Dimitri.

"Go. I'll stay here with Evgeny and the others to finish up. D'wane and Calum can help us."

Without a second thought Dimitri ran for the outer door, desperately hoping they would be in time.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: this is the final chapter so I would like to thank all of my readers for sticking with my version of history. To my reviewers, I can't thank you enough for taking the time and effort to provide your feedback, it is always hugely appreciated. **

**22. Thames Estuary. 13:50 hours.**

Dear God, he was tired. More tired than he had almost ever been. The last thirty-six hours had shaken him in ways he had never experienced before and hoped never to experience again and left him feeling – he wasn't sure what. Flat. Sullied. Exhausted. Disillusioned. All of the above and more. He had been hoping that the fresh air blowing in off the Estuary would clear his head but, although it was cold, it carried with it the taint of rotting seaweed and something else, something faintly chemical, that he couldn't quite identify. It was probably appropriate for the day, though: something that appeared clean on the surface was suppurating beneath.

He wasn't sure what was going on inside and he didn't really care. It was all over for RussiaFirst and Elena. Whether she even survived or not was a point of zero interest to him. He had been released from that imaginary obligation and, now it was all over, actually felt as though he had been unshackled. No more lies, no more secrets, no more guilt. No more job. Instead, the freedom of anonymity and civilian life. With company, he hoped, but if not then there were the children and, perhaps one day soon, grand-children. In the meantime, he would give Malcolm a call next week to discuss joining him in his new organisation. It sounded interesting and would give him something to do that would still keep his brain alive but without the stress of his current occupation.

His phone rang. Towers, confirming that Pavel Zykov had been arrested at Heathrow and wanting to know what was happening at Harry's end. The conversation was succinct and, as they rang off, Ruth appeared from the direction of the bunker, passing the old radar tower. He thought she looked weary; she thought he looked utterly drained.

"The plane's down and Zykov's in custody."

She nodded and looked at him searchingly, concerned about the effects the past few days and weeks might have had on him.

"You alright?"

The question was blunt but undoubtedly caring. Looking at her briefly and then away, he scrubbed at his eyes before answering honestly,

"I don't know." He genuinely didn't. It was odd but he felt like he was floating in a form of stasis, done with the past, the future unknown, the present unknowable. The thought made him wonder, briefly and clinically, about Elena. "She talked about the line we don't cross…"

_Bloody Elena… _But then he didn't know what had happened inside, he hadn't seen the crumbling terror on her face as Kuzin had walked into the room and Ilya had abandoned her.

"I think you can stop hating yourself for the lies you told her," she said drily. That he would. Already had, in fact. And it was an overwhelming relief. If only it could be that easy to forgive himself in relation to Jane but it never would be. No matter what the reason, his behaviour there had been shameful and unforgivable and the fallout was permanent and irreparable. However, he was now finally done with lying, would never have to lie again, and would make damned sure that he never would. To the woman in front of him or anyone else. As though reading his mind, he realised she was talking about lies. "I always thought that, with every lie we tell, our true selves got buried that little bit deeper. And I worry that one day, I'll wake up and look for it—" her eyes, which had been flickering around the shore, the Estuary, the ground, finally met his, briefly, as she spoke "—look for me – and I won't be there anymore." A smile glimmered, as quickly gone as her gaze had been, "But that hasn't happened, Harry. To either of us."

He let his own gaze wander around the view, reluctant to let the woman see the nascent hope that was in his mind. Instead, he sighed,

"Not yet," and focussed his attention on the ground between them for a moment, allowing her to study him a little more. He was, for once, looking every day of his age and she softened even more towards him. He had been doing this job, or variations of it, since she was born so it was no wonder he had finally burned out. Not helped by the past few years when she had been adding additional, un-needed weight to the load he had been carrying… She owed him an apology of sorts.

"I left because I thought there'd always be too many secrets between us." He glanced up in time to catch the self-deprecating smile flickering again. "Stupid, really, because you and I, we're made of secrets." _As was everyone on the planet, _he thought, _but even more so for the likes of us. _He was glad she was finally admitting it to herself, though, it would make her life so much easier if she stopped fighting the unpalatable reality of their work. "So leave the Service." _Well, he was. She knew that._ Her touch suddenly distracted him, her fingers trailing down his arm until they reached his then clasping them in a light grip. The shock was so great that, at first, he barely registered her next words. "With me. While we still know who we are."

He stared at her, dumb-struck, while her statement percolated through. Of all the things he might have expected her to say, that was not it. Not an invitation to share her life. Did she really mean it? He searched her face and saw her slightly tremulous smile, the fear and determination in her eyes, and realised, incredulously, that she did. He couldn't stop his own burgeoning smile in response, suddenly feeling stupidly light. And then Sasha appeared in the distance, walking determinedly towards them. With a gun in his hand. The smile vanished as he gently moved her to one side and slightly behind him, saying quietly as he watched the young man approach,

"Move away. Go back to the bunker."

She went to ignore him and step forward but he grabbed her wrist in a vice-like grip so instead, seeing that the young man was upset and guessing why but not seeing the gun, she asked gently, hoping to defuse the situation,

"Sasha, what is it?"

"She is as good as dead. Prison will kill her and if it doesn't, my father will." His absolute fury and anguish was writ large all over his face as he stopped a few paces away from them and Ruth felt nothing but sorrow for the boy as she knew what he said was probably true. He wasn't looking at her, though, he was staring at Harry. "You set this up, didn't you?"

The older man replied quietly, his gaze never wavering,

"I had to, Sasha. She would have killed hundreds of people and put our two countries at war otherwise."

"You knew he would try to kill her, that he will kill her. He will not live with that betrayal and shame."

_Yes, he had known. Known that it was a risk, at least – Ilya was that sort of man, below his veneer of cultured civility. As, indeed, they all were._ While the young man had been talking, Tallulah Zanon and Jim Coaver had appeared, silent and armed, over the rise. Thinking to give them a little more time to get into position, Harry shook his head in some form of apology and answered gently, his gaze forcing the young man to continue staring back at him and away from the CIA agents.

"I'm sorry, Sasha, I'm sorry for every—"

"Shut up." His arm swung up and the pistol was aimed with un-nerving steadiness at Harry's head. The man didn't flinch but Ruth gave a silent gasp of fear and dread and, driven by pure instinct, tried to move forward again but he wouldn't let her, hissing,

"Stay behind me," and tightening his grip on her. Very well, she would do as he said but it wouldn't stop her talking and that might divert Sasha from noticing the pair behind him, who had approached silently and were now in position, aiming their weapons, or Dimitri, who had just appeared in turn on the crest of the low hill where, seeing the tableau, he stopped and began to quietly alert Calum.

"Sasha, it wasn't just Harry. It was Jim Coaver and Evgeny Kuzin as well but it was really RussiaFirst themselves. They set it up. Mikhail Levrov and your mother have been working together with this aim in mind since long before you were born."

"**No!**That's not true. She_-" _

"It's true, Sasha. You're blaming the wrong person." Jim Coaver spoke from his position behind the young Russian; when the latter spun around in shock he came almost face to face with the pistol the American had pointed at him, unwavering, and the hard expression behind it. Coaver's eyes were a strangely flat pale green and Harry was momentarily thrown back to Berlin in 1984: the last time he had seen that expression on his friend's face he had been the one on the receiving end of it, and the gun. Sasha was stunned; he had been so focussed on Harry that he had heard nothing of the man approaching from behind, or the woman who was standing off to one side, her own weapon immovably locked onto him. In the background, on the crest of the low hill between them and the old radar tower, he finally saw Dimitri standing, watching, openly relaying the events back to the bunker and casually swinging his own pistol from his trigger finger while two more men, one CIA and the other FSB and both heavily armed, had appeared from no-where when he had been staring at Jim, Raul directly behind Harry and Ruth and his fellow Russian further back, off to the right. He was surrounded. Gavrik's pained confusion, disbelief and pure, unmitigated rage were plain for all to see as he stared wildly from Jim to Tallulah and back again. "It's over. Drop the gun and back away. There's no need for any of us to get hurt." Mutiny spread on the young man's face and Coaver read his intentions clearly. "You can shoot one of us if you're quick enough but it will be a suicide mission. And don't even think about turning back to Harry: you won't make it."

Sasha felt like his head was about to explode. Everything he had found out in the previous few weeks, since he had uncovered that note in Moscow from the Englishman to his mother, had turned his life upside down and shaken it empty, with today's final revelations from Elena irretrievably undermining his precarious psychological balance. With a howl of impotent rage he swung his pistol back towards the man he blamed for it all, the man who might have been his father, but he didn't complete the move. Tallulah's weapon coughed, once, and Jim's spat in synchronicity; Sasha's howl of rage turned to one of agony as the gun fell from his now nerveless hand, his forearm shattered by the first bullet and his shoulder ripped open by the second, and he collapsed to his knees.

The gun-shots, muffled though they were, left everyone in silence for a moment. In the background, Dimitri reported back to the bunker that the crisis was over and holstered his gun; at the scene, Tallulah picked up the Russian's pistol and tucked it in her belt, all the while dispassionately watching him, ready for any movement. Jim had lowered his own weapon and also re-holstered it, breathing a quiet sigh of relief while the Russian and Raul did the same. Harry, finally realising how tightly he had been gripping Ruth's wrist, loosened his hold and slid his fingers down to take her hand again, relieved to feel, first, the returning pressure of her own clasp and then the warmth of her weight as she sagged against his side, seeking reassurance and support as her knees felt like they were about to collapse.

Coaver limped the last few yards towards the couple, all his aches and pains returning with a vengeance now that the adrenaline was wearing off. Harry spoke before he could.

"It's totally inadequate but thank you, Jim. That was close."

"Too close, my friend. We're both getting too old for this so let's agree to never do it again and leave it at that."

Tired smiles flashed briefly on both men's faces.

"I think I can do that."

Behind them, Dimitri and Raul were hauling Sasha to his feet, preparatory to the four of them escorting him back to the bunker and a future as uncertain as his mother's. Coaver's smile changed to something softer. Glancing down at the entwined hands he asked gently, paternally,

"You two kids got something to tell me, huh?" Harry blinked, not expecting the change of subject while Ruth merely smiled a very contented smile and squeezed his hand a little more tightly. At the move he belatedly realised what Jim was talking about and replied quietly,

"Yes. I'm handing in my commission tonight, Jim, so I'll be retired from the service by the end of the week." He cast a warm glance at the woman, the smile that had begun before Sasha's arrival finally blossoming in full and making her heart do a back-flip. "Apparently I won't be alone, though."

_It had happened, _she thought, momentarily bemused by the sudden shift in her life and circumstances. _After all this time, they were finally together. Just like that. All she had ever needed to do was speak out… _Unable to repress a grin of her own, or the sparkle in her eyes, she corrected him solemnly.

"Retired to the _country, _and _definitely_ not alone."

Jim was happy for his old friend. He had seen him suffer, one way or the other, for most of the 1980's; they had shared some good times as roving bachelors in London in the 1990's but since then he had watched life and work combine to slowly grind the Englishman into the ground while he himself had finally settled into quiet happiness, back in Langley, with Gianna and Ravenna so he sincerely wished the couple well and hoped Harry would finally find some form of peace in his life. He had more than earned it.

"The _country?_" the American repeated in mock-wonder as they slowly began to follow Tallulah, Dimitri and their prisoner back to the bunker, Jim now starting to hobble again as the adrenaline wore off and the pain of his injuries returned.

"Suffolk, from all reports," Harry expanded, glancing again at the woman by his side, cheekiness lurking in his eyes as draped an arm around her shoulders and added, innocently, "I believe there's a house."

Coaver lifted an eyebrow.

"Is there, just? You'd better tell me about it."

Recognising the dry humour that she'd missed in their previous encounter on the ferry pier, Ruth smiled, laid her own arm around Harry's waist and expanded on the subject a little as she gently rubbed his back.

"There isn't much to tell – you should come and visit some time, see for yourself. It's got a green front door. The paint on it is peeling; the woman said I'd want to change it but I love it. There are two bedrooms. One's only small, though." She took a breath and peered up through her eyelashes, sideways, at Harry. _Might as well come out with it_. "I thought it could be your office, although it will need refurbishing. So will the kitchen and the bath—"

A sly grin crossed Coaver's features, gone as soon as it appeared, replaced by a world-weary sigh as he clapped Harry on the back.

"Sounds like she's got the DIY list ready for you already, Hal. You'd better get yourself fit so I guess you'll be joining me on that elliptical trainer in the morning!"

Ruth's laughter gurgled up.

"Now _that _I would like to see!"

"Don't hold your breath…"

Their voices faded into the distance, the final remnants snatched away by the chill breeze as they walked into the unknowable future. Behind them, alone now, the river flowed on, remorseless, oblivious to humanity, and a gull screamed high on the wind under the spreading dark of the deepening overcast. A few faint lights shone in the early shadows on the far side of the Estuary, preparing for their temporary victory in the daily battle against the encroaching night. Tomorrow would be here soon enough: another new day in the endless, relentless procession of new days that came from the future to exist for an ephemeral moment before slipping forever into the past and the river, the sky and the gull would go on, impervious to the internecine battles of humanity or their small doses of wondrous happiness, as they always had and always would.


End file.
